Next spring, I’m thinking of ordering a couple Geneva rootstocks and some bud 9. My plan is to grow them out enough to experiment a bit with interstems.
Maybe for rootstocks, try seedling, M111, and a couple others.
Try different interstem lengths with the same scion and check growth and performance over time.
Has anyone done like this simply out of nerdy curiosity? Is there any problem with me growing the Geneva rootstocks this way from a patent perspective?
I grafted a few M111+G.41 and M111+BUD9 interstems last year. The longer the interstem (to a point) the more the dwarfing effect is supposed to be. So I went with 1’ and then buried the bottom graft union about 3" or 4" or more.
Planted some seeds with a similar thought of substituting that in place of M111 for the roots but haven’t given that a try just yet.
They only grew perhaps a bit over a foot in the pots last year, the soil I used wasn’t great I now realize. In the ground in the orchard though most of them are really taking off. Here’s May Queen on M111+G.41:
If grafted some interstems of M9 and B9 on MM111 last year. Varying length of 25-40 cm. And i made notes witch tree had what and what length.
I don’t think my sample size or age of tree’s is large enough to be able to say anything significant though.
I think you’re technically breaking the patent on those geneva’s when using them as interstem without paying a royalty. I don’t know if they mind or will take the effort to do anything about it though. That will likely change if you start selling those tree’s commercially.
