Citation Rootstock Patent 5112 Expired in 2002!

On the topic of expired patents, many nurseries continue to list varieties as propagation prohibited long after patents expire (this is illegal of course and CAN lead to large fines, but requires consumer reporting for enforcement).

The most egregious I’ve encountered was last year when I bought half a dozen different berry cultivars from a “reputable” nursery. Every single cultivar label indicated that the varieties were patent protected. I looked each one up, and only one was under patent. One had been in circulation for over a century (plant patents only last 20 years) and one didn’t appear to have ever been patented at any time. The rest were just standard cases of expired patents. Ironically the only one that actually was under patent, they had labeled as PPAF (plant patent applied for) despite the fact that the patent had been active for long enough that it was soon to expire!

I contacted the company about the illegal labeling and they responded that they were aware, but that they do it at the recommendation of their label printer. I call bull. If I wanted to I could report them and get significant financial compensation, but I’m not petty.

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Krymsk 1 will also root from cuttings.

An advantage, or disadvantage, of St. Julian is that it suckers, sometimes at significant distance from the tree. I dug this up and transplanted a few weekends ago. It was only a few feet from the trunk, but others are much further:

Here’s another, I’m embarrassed to say, I was in a hurry, and didn’t transplant it:wqw

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Wow! I wish my St. Julian would sucker. I got it years ago as a ‘Peach’ plum, but didn’t realize until later that the graft had failed leaving me with only the rootstock. After it started fruiting I didn’t mind because the ugly green plums on it are SOOOO good. Unfortunately it got really well pollinated last year and the whole thing broke apart under the weight. It’s never sent up any suckers, but now I have some hope that it might survive. Maybe it just needs root disturbance/damage of some sort to stimulate suckering.

Yes, the late Lon Rombough, in the Home Orchard Society forum, posted that St Julian plums are quite good in their own right. I had an unidentified tree on my current property, that I’ve since determined is likely classic Green Gage, that I was trying to ID by description and he suggested St Julian as a possibility.

Any guesses what pollenized yours? When I’ve let it flower it’s set very sparsely.

I used to have a graft of peach plum, ironically grafted to peach understock. I agree that you were better off with the ugly green St. Julian plums.

Yes, and no. I know what tree was responsible for the heavy fruit crop that broke it to pieces, but I don’t know the name since it’s an old “found” selection.

For many years I got just light (but still worthwhile) fruit crops from my St Julian even though it flowers well every year. Some number of years back I planted a sucker taken from a clonal population of unknown European type plum that is large, mild and primarily sweet in flavor. Last year was the first year that particular sucker plum was mature enough to flower very heavily and it just happened to be a perfect bloom overlap for St Julian. If I could go back in time I would have heavily thinned my St Julian to have prevented over bearing. After this experience I’m inclined to believe St. Julian is only partially self fertile, but more productive with the right pollination partner.

Chris H. (I don’t know if he’s on this forum) tells me there is an old St Julian and a more modern improved St Julian. I’m not sure which of the two I have, but I wonder if that’s related to why mine has never suckered. I don’t recall its age for sure, but imagine it’s been in ground for about a decade.

I don’t think Chris reads this forum. He’s on NAFEX and Agrarian Sharing Network’s Facebook pages.

There’s some discussion of these on the Home Orchard Society Forum, which persists in spite of the organization wrapping up. Mostly folks in the PNW contributing.

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After looking into it a bit I found a reference to strain St Julien GF 655/2 being known for producing lots of suckers. Perhaps that’s why we’re having different experiences. Maybe my St Julien is ‘St Julian A’ and yours is ‘St Julian GF655/2’? Apparently the latter is more shallow rooted. That could be why it’s prone to suckering.

@murky After looking through my notes I see that last year after doing reseach I found that my unknown plum which pollenates the St Julien is a possible match for a French variety called d’Agen. I found a picture I took of the fruit last year too.
Plum

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What’s a mist bench. I am wanting to propogate some rootstocks but unfamiliar with the procedures and equipment to do it on a small scale

it’s a propagation tool where you spray mist onto cuttings to support them with water until they can form roots. usually you spray mist on a timer, I do 5 seconds every 10 minutes, and only during daytime. fancier systems will adjust the mist rate to the evaporation rate with sensors or computer models

timed mist helps root lots of things that are otherwise hard to root so it’s a pretty important propagation tool. each given species will have known strategies for propagation that you can look up. for rootstocks many of them can be done as hardwood or softwood cuttings under mist which is a decent strategy if you have the bench already. I think some rootstocks are done this way commercially but almost all are stooled because there are tools to reduce labor cost with stooling and commercial rootstocks might only sell for a dollar or two, so a mist bench wouldn’t work economically

when I get around to doing my citation or g5 rootstock production I’ll probably do cuttings under mist because I already have the equipment for it and the labor is trivial, just snip and stick and wait

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How about IBA. I am able to procure only laboratory grade pure IBA. In order to dilute it in water it is recommended to be dissolved in alcohol first. But I am not sure about the quantities involved

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I bare rooted the Krymsk 1 today, separated the two sprouts and potted them separately.

It turns out only one of the root cuttings was successful and it had sent up three sprouts, of which two were dominant. Perhaps this is an indication that stooling is possible? Maybe this will be a good experiment for next year.

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