Calville blanc G41 - good espalier? Opinions please

Just to give a different perspective: I have about forty apple trees on G41 that I am training in Belgian fences. The majority (more than 75%) are doing fine and look to be plenty vigorous for my purposes. There are a handful that have struggled a bit, mostly due to inexpert grafting, being moved multiple times, or being distinctly less vigorous varieties. I’d say most of those problems are due to my learning curve as a novice, not the rootstock per se, though I guess a more vigorous rootstock might give you more room for error. Maybe I would feel differently if I were trying to grow freestanding trees, but for espalier purposes I think G41 is not a bad choice. Unfortunately, I’m not growing Calville Blanc, so I can’t speak to that specifically.

For reference, I’m in zone 5/6 Massachusetts.

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thanks for the input. I am leaning away from G41. I have a few G11 and I am happy with height, shape, etc… but even with a trianle of t-posts around each tree, they are unsteady/wobbly. I am happy with the one G11/M111 that I have.
I can see where a G41 might work for a Belgian fence.
Since I have room, I am thinking of replacing all my G11s with perhaps G11/M111 or some combo like that. It will be a more than a few year process as I don’t want to be without apples any year. Put new trees in… wait until they are bearing good and then remove G11s … and in MORE VARIETIES!! Good fun!

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thank you, Nil! very generous! If I decide to go with G 890, I would be happy to buy any root stock you will not be using. That is a rootstock I really haven’t considered yet. The more I am reading about the G41, I am thinking I don’t want to use it even as an interstem I thought it might work for an espalier with calville blanc but I hear calville blanc needs a more vigorous rootstock.
If I do come up, perhaps I could return the favor if you are interested in an impossible to find strawberry in this country… gariguette. Mike of the strawberry story legally imported some a few years back. He was kind enough to send 2 plants to me. He only sold gariguettes for two years, I believe. He sold the business and the new owner did not continue with gariguettes. They are french and delicious. If interested you can google them for more info.

MrsG Did you stay in Giverney, or do a day trip from Paris?

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A day trip from Paris. It was easy. Not far, about 45 minutes maybe.

My G41 trees were bought already with the apple variety on them from Cummin’s nursery. I figured they would know how to graft a tree better than I would. So perhaps it is my soil. I have other M111’s in the same area and they are all doing well and thriving. The G41’s look sickly compared to the M111’s.
I am not sure what the difference in between your luck with the G41’s and mine. I am glad you have had good luck with yours. I will not try them again. It is too much time and space wasted on a tree rootstock that does not do well for me.

I have 9x Geneva 969 from Cummins. I don’t have any G890. I will graft some over this Winter, it you want to use the parts I cut off for your interstem. I may buy some m111 and interstem a few myself. Better than tossing the tops in the compost bin. G969 is supposed to be M7 sized, but some Genevas are running smaller in WA. I will find out as they grow. I am thinking about growing 2 or 3 of them into a scaffold for 3-in-1 multigrafts.
I have not seen any G41 grown in an open center habit, so I may try that in containers with Queen Cox grafts.

WSU Geneva rootstock trials.
http://treefruit.wsu.edu/article/geneva-rootstock-performance-2016-rootstock-trial-update/
http://treefruit.wsu.edu/article/2017-geneva-rootstock-tour-observations/

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In terms of soil, we have a fairly well-draining sandy loam/loamy sand in our part of Massachusetts, and our yard in particular drains pretty well. I’m not sure about your part of Ohio, but I spent a year in central Ohio and from what I remember, there was more clay to the soil out there. Maybe that’s part of the difference?

Also, if you’re looking at your G41’s in comparison to your M111’s, it only makes sense that the G41’s would look comparatively puny. And if your goal is a stouter, free-standing tree, M111 seems like the sensible choice. In the context of my own espalier project, G41 seems to be working pretty well, though there does seem to be a certain percentage of trees that have been very slow to start, maybe one in five, though part of that is probably due to my personal learning curve.

(And now that I think of it, I believe that a couple of my “problem trees” may actually be on G202. They were initially set back by being grafted too late in the spring, and then got moved the next year, when I was turning my mini-nursery into a vegetable garden. As a side note: G202 seems to come out of dormancy relatively early in the spring, which made it a little harder for me to time the grafting what with the risk of late cold snaps. Probably should have just gone for it, in retrospect.)

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I grew up with the glacial till of NE Ohio, but if I recall correctly, most of the southern state is clay and alkaline. M111 is supposed to be well adapted to higher pH. I live in a city, so many people are reluctant to buy large trees when they need a second to pollenize.
If a tree wants to be 20+ feet tall, it might be trouble to maintain it at 10 feet. I wouldn’t want a tree that requires constant pruning, just to get a little more growth in the first two seasons. It makes me laugh when people complain that dwarfing rootstocks are not vigorous. No kidding, that is literally what they were bred for.

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Yea it does seem strange. M111 grows great in the early years but what about a mature tree you’re going to have to prune it heavy to keep it small. Unless you’re living in an arid region or Florida or the tropics. My neighbor had a Golden Delicious on “semi-dwarf rootstock”. I suspect it is actually M111. Why? Well it’s 30 feet tall. He didn’t prune and it got big.

That’s why there is a move to dwarf rootstocks. You fertilize and water heavy the first two years to get good growth and when it fruits heavy in year 3 the height becomes very easy to control with minimal pruning.

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You are correct about the soil here having a lot of clay in it and more in certain areas. That may be part of the difference. I have M111 growing in the same soil and the trees look a lot better, not comparing a bigger size per say but just better looking branching and leaves. The G41’s just look sickly and scrawny. I did not expect them to be as big as M111’s. That is one of the reasons I bought them, apple choice and a smaller size tree. I am just disappointed at how sickly they look.
I also have a couple of G202’s. Only one of them looks good. The rest look just as sickly as the G41’s. In fact the one G202 apple tree is a great producer. One of the highest yields of my apple trees. If they all looked this good I would be very happy with the G series rootstocks.
I have not noticed the G202’s coming out of dormancy earlier than the rest of my apple trees. I will make a note to check the time of breaking dormancy in the spring. I can say for sure they all were blooming at the same time last year. Because we had a huge cold spell exactly when they were all in full bloom. I only had about three dozen very small apples off my 28 apple trees. If I did get any apples off of them they were on the inner part of the tree closer to the trunk.

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oh Mike… 3 dozen apples off 28 trees… heartbreaking!
I have heavy clay soil also. very discouraging at times. Happy to hear that the M11s are doing pretty good.

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Nil… thank you for your offer. After looking into rootstocks more, I think I will be getting a calville on M111 for my espalier. I can’t find it being offered by anyone with an interstem and I dont want to waste a year or two by grafting it myself this Spring. I will be ordering a few M111…G11 and maybe try a few others to play with.
Most of my trees are on G11 and I am happy with the height (I am short), fruit production, size of fruit, amt of pruning needed but not the amt of supporting I have to do to get the trees to stay even sort of upright.
I have one G11/M111 from cummins and I am quite happy with size and root stability. I think I am going to “re-do” my orchard slowly over next few years and graft my favs onto G11/M111. The only tree that doesn’t seem to do very well on the G11 is my honeycrisp. I planted a cosmic crisp this Spring. If it does well I may not even bother with a re-do of the honeycrisp on a more vigorous interstem & rootstock.
thank you again… stay well, mary

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