I have a seedling apple rootstock in the front yard that is a couple of years old. Last year I grafted a small scion of bud 9 on it. The bud 9 grew three pretty equally sized branches. This year I grafted chestnut crab And hews Virginia crab on two of the scaffolds. The amount of bud nine enter stem is pretty limited. There is a pretty ugly raft union between the rootstock and the bud nine . Is this going to be enough InterStim to dwarf the crabs ? Suggestions for a third Apple variety to add to the third scaffold next year that would be similar to these two in vigor .
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That’s plenty of B9 interstem to control vigor on those varieties, especially since your main highway splits into 3 roads at the junction. I have B9 interstems only a few inches in length that do the job quite well, although there is certainly a correlation between length of interstem and dwarfing effect. B9 is an excellent interstem, but can be brittle with some varieties…Honeycrisp, for example. With the angle of that third stem, I would recommend another crab, maybe Trailman, so the branch doesn’t snap off on you under load. One of the benefits of B9 is that it promotes larger fruit, and you’ll get that effect from an interstem as well.
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Thanks for the advice, greatly appreciated. I will research trailman
Trailman is a nice late summer treat, it does go by pretty quick once ripe. If you wanted to push your harvest window in the other direftion, Wickson could be another option. It is quite widely adapted and comes after Chestnut.
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I had voles demonstrate they really like b9 cambium by selectively girdling a few interstems, didnt touch the rootstock or variety on top- grrrrrrr!
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