I was reading the Burnt Ridge Review thread and @Blueberry reminded me that I was waiting for my order of 30 pear root stocks from Cummins. They emailed me on the 9th to let me know that my order was going to ship on the week of the 16. Well, here it is the 22nd, and I never got my order. I emailed them tonight about the matter. Hopefully they respond.
I got my pear and apple rootstock from them a few days ago. Roots seemed a little dry and gave them a quick soak before grafting. I donāt think they sent a tracking number but UPS popped up with it. Who knows maybe it shipped late last week and needs a few days to travel.
Overall hard to argue with their rootstock pricing although 39th parallel had very good prices on high quality rootstock i received a week prior.
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Thanks, FarmGirl.
I finally got an email Saturday evening blaming my Cummins order shortages on ānew hiresā at the nursery.
And was promised the trees will be mailed out today, Monday.
Weāll see. Glad to get rootstocks, but trees was a big omission from the shipment last Wednesday that I received Friday.
While weāre at itā¦once I unpackaged the rootstocks yesterday, they have the fewest roots of any apple rootstocks I ever ordered from anybodyā¦including from Cummins in the past two years.
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Did you happen to take pictures? Iām new at grafting and Iād like to see what you consider āthe fewest rootsā. I was out in one of my orchards a few days ago and noticed some apple suckering from the root stock. I was sure that I could ārescueā them and put them to use. I was able to dig out 10, but a few of them didnāt have the best roots. I stuck them in one of my nursery beds anyway and I guess weāll just have to see what happens provided that I can get them grafted properly. 
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I just ordered 40 Bud 9 rootstocks from Cummins this year. They were great, and quite frankly better than I was expecting. I know that they ship in most of their rootstocks from the big West Coast nurseries, but I was happy with what I received from them. The trees I got from them last year were exactly what I ordered and all are doing well. Where Cummins has room to improve from my experience is their website. Both orders Iāve done had a hiccup in the pricing. The first order had to be sorted out by e-mail because of a $25 difference between estimated shipping and actual shipping prices. This season when I paid in full the order, the next day I got an e-mail that said I still owed $5. I looked at the confirmation e-mail I received the night I paid my order and the price was $5 less than the e-mail the next day. It got sorted out, but youād think they would get that kind of stuff sorted out in the off season.
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With sufficient TLC even a couple puny roots should still work out.
But, when you have one strand about like one little piece hanging from a rag mop, you expect better when buying from nurseries. But, you may well succeed with your effort to take root sprouts and nurse them in a bed!
I donāt use a āsmart phoneā and have not mastered uploading from a digital camera, sorry.
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I like Cummins too, but the last few years they have had strange and common differences between the price you initially pay and the final price they ask you to pay later. I had the exact same issue with a $5 difference between the estimated shipping and the actual shipping. Then they also upgraded the caliper of one of my trees and charged me another few dollars for that. The final difference in price isnt that big a deal and the product is good, but it is surprising to see unexpected price changes after paying.
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I hope they get it sorted out.
In their defense for recent orders though, with everything shut down I so many places, Iāll just be happy if they can actually send my order near itās scheduled date in April.
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I got a few pear rootstocks from them today(sorry @39thparallel Iād already ordered them before you offered any). They look good but the ones I got from 39thparallel were better. Their plastic wrapping the roots was kind of shoddy and about a third of the roots were kind of dry. Iād give them a 4 out 10, they are still one of the good guys.
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No problem about the pics, I understand. Thanks for sharing your experience. I got an email from them today saying that my order should arrive tomorrow. I also got an email from UPS letting me know the same thing.
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Iāve consistently received great product from them, but also consistently get āupgradedā to larger caliper trees and get charged more after the fact. Sometimes itās been extreme, going from one of the smaller calipers to the largest.
Iām bothered by this.
If it werenāt for the great product, Iād be reluctant to order trees from them. (Edit: reluctant is too harsh a word. It is frustrating, though)
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Do you tend to order early? The best possible excuse I can think of for this behavior Iāve seen from them is that they let people order trees they have on the ground and estimate their caliper at harvest. If it is a higher higher than anticipated in the fall āharvest,ā they āupgrade customers and charge them more. In any case, itās frustrating, though they do offer lower prices on their smaller caliper stuff than most other nurseries. For me, the big advantages of Cummins is their selection (very good) and combos of Geneva rootstocks (for those of us with lots of disease pressure and not enough space for lots of m111 trees
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The keepsake i got from cummins on b41 had a single small skinny tendril of root.
Tree is alive, but crotch is high. All buds are dead up to 39 inches.
Must have been badly shaded out. (I had the same issue with desiree peach from them. Beautiful branching ā¦ but all dead)
It seems like it can survive with a wee bit of root (so far anyways)
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My order arrived late afternoon today. few of the root stocks were a little dry, so I put them in a bucket of water. I plan to try to get my grafting done tomorrow afternoon.
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Huvid: I tend to order early since Iāve been collecting āodditiesā and like the early selection. It just feels like they should honor the price of whatever they post on the site, even if they have to upgrade you.
Farm Girl: Donāt worryā¦ Iāve grafted hundreds of rootstock from Cummins. Iāve had grafts fail, but every single rootstock or tree Iāve gotten from Cummins has lived.
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Thanks for the reassurance!
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Agreed.
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My G890 from Cummins had a pretty bad failure rate last yearā¦but being a glutton for punishment I order more this year. They donāt look as good thoughā¦so hope that doesnāt bode ill for the percent that ātakeā again this year.
G202 and G30 didnāt have many failures. But mostly I went with B9 and B118 this year. (From somebody besides Cummins).
Supposedly my missing trees from the screwed-up order are coming tomorrow. so says the tracking number.
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Did the grafts fail or the rootstock die?
My graft failure rate last year for m111 and g890 didnāt feel so hot, but the failures were centered on just a few scion varietals.
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Well, Iām going from memory as I replyā¦
But, I had more G890 grafts fail than any other rootstock except seedlings (and most of the seedlings were really small caliper). Only one rootstock diedā¦and I have regrafted to the others already this spring where the graft failed last year.
B-9, B-118, G30 and G202 had better results than G890.
As for blaming the scionwoodā¦.the only two scionwood that I suspect contributed were one called āCotton Sweetā from Mr. Bowen who is among the nurseries listed with growingfruit.org, and some Arkansas Black scions taken in December of 2018 and not grafted until April 2019ā¦and those two failed on every root I put them on last spring (I typically make 2 or 3 grafts of every variety someone sends me, sometimes more if I like the variety and people send more than one stick of wood).
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