Hey everyone first time apple grower here. I plan on adding 2 apples trees to my yard. I want one to be a Jonathan. The root stock can be confusing. The ones I am looking at have an option of g.935 and g.890 . Any input on what is better for a home grower. I am in zone 7a south eastern PA.
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Welcome to GrowingFruit!
Lots of apple growers in your region here, whom I imagine will be chiming in over the next few days.
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G935 has a reputation for being sensitive to viruses. If the scion is clean, there is no problem, but it seems symptoms of some viruses donāt show until it is too late. I tend to shy from it since Gen890 continues to gain adherents. I have two young trees on that I grafted a couple years ago & they are doing fine.
I imagine someone on this forum has had good results with G935, so donāt let mine be the only voice to sway you.
BTW, welcome to one of the best resources you can find in this endeavor. Not everyone is as opinionated as am I, and many have much more experience caring for hundreds of apple trees. I am responsible for 24.
A friend living nearby has a Jonathan which he never thins in June. It has gone severely biennial. Last year, after eating as many fresh as we could, making pies and some sauce, I dried a couple gallon bags worth of its fruit, which is extraordinary dried. It made maybe 6 apples this year.
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Iām also in SE PA a little bit outside Philly. Iāve only been growing apples for two years, so thereās plenty here more experienced than me.
G.935 is supposed to be 40% dwarfing and G.890 is 60%, so youāre looking at 12-18ā trees which means youāll need a ladder to thin fruit, spray, and prune. If you want big trees and OK climbing a ladder, thatās fine, but you should be aware of it going in. B.9 and a bunch of the other Geneva rootstocks can produce smaller trees you wonāt need a ladder to manage. Dwarf trees should be permanently staked though, while the larger ones are usually fine after a couple years.
Iāve never grown Jonathan (and donāt remember what it tastes like, but my mom says she loves it), but I wouldnāt plant it here as it is susceptibleā¦to basically all the common diseases. Cummins also says it is prone to biennialism if you donāt thin the fruit adequately. Jonafree looked like a good alternative, but I donāt have personal experience with it.
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I am all in on G890. I have about 50 trees on it now. I keep mine pruned to 8 feet and itās not difficult to do so.
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I have a three year old G890 on which each scaffold I have grafted a different variety. I will probably top it at about 10ā high and train all scaffolds along a horizontal plane around the circle. This rootstock is semi dwarf and does not require staking if you keep its scaffolds symmetrically growing so that fruit loads are balanced. I never will need a ladder to prune or care for the fruit. I highly recommend it for easy growing with minimal effort
Dennis
Kent, wa
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Some of this is gleaned from the literature & some from using it in my yard over the past 4 years:
Geneva 890, for which the various contractions stand, is a handy stock, resistant to replant disease (not a concern where you plant apple for the first time), wooly aphid & collar rot (disease that strikes the graft union in damp conditions): quite productive, hardy (-35-40Ā°F if I recall) and free-standing in most situations, about 60% of what a given variety can be on its own roots Back East.
Out West the many Geneva stocks tend to be 10 to 15% smaller. G890 was patented & released in 2003, so its patent is now expired. If something bad happens to your variety on it & dies, new growth from G890 tends to be quite vertical, which makes grafting to it produce a nicer looking tree from the new start.
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BTW, G935 makes a tree only slightly bigger than M9 or Bud9, in other words, small & needing support its life long.
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Iām a home grower myself and growing Crimson Crisp on G.935, the tree is in its 3rd year and Iām very happy with it. Itās already bigger than my 5 year old B.9 tree (9 feet vs 8 feet), really well formed, strong lateral branches, and pretty prolific (though I still thinned out most of the apples this year). I have no experience with G.890 so canāt offer a comparison. I suppose a question would be how much space you have available, and if you want a larger, or smaller tree.
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I believe 890 and 969 are still under patent for another decade or so.
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That appears to be correct: USPP23327P3 - Apple tree rootstock named āG.890ā - Google Patents
US20120096609P1 - Apple tree rootstock named 'G.969' - Google Patents
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I like g.890 so far. Not surprised to learn that it is attracting adherents.
Yeah, itās pretty vertical. I will be notching above some buds to make branches next spring.
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Thanks for that, Zumo & evilpaul. I stand corrected. Now I must figure out what my faulty memory had swapped that had its patent expire last yearā¦
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And MikeB, thanks for saying something about your Crimson Crisp on G935 doing much better than another on Bud9. Good to know.
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Jsher: Evilpaul brought up a point I only recently stumbled upon in looking up another apple in Tom Burfordās āApples of North Americaā. Jonafree was bred to avoid some of the problems encountered in growing Jonathan. Jonafree is not likely to develop Jonathan Spot, which I sure appreciate, nor scab. Someone on another thread said it tastes of Jonathan, just a bit less so.
I just looked at the website for Maple Valley Orchards (in Wisconsin) to see if they could cobble together Jonafree & Gen890 as a benchgraft & send it to you in the mail. Yep. Costs way less than a whip because you care for it from the start, so you must safeguard it until the graft has joined (ācallusedā is the correct term). I bought bench grafts from MVO, put metal mesh cylinders (about 18" across & high) around them to keep the cats, birds and squirrels at bay. After several years both trees produced excellent crops.
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