Flavor Queen rootstock

I purchased Flavor queen & Emerald beaut from Tomorrow’s Harvest nursery. Their website doesn’t have any mention of the rootstocks. I assumed they were from Dave Wilson’s nursery but their website doesn’t have that info either.
Advice appreciated :slight_smile:

DWN used to graft on Citation a lot so it will be probably that one

1 Like

If these are DWN trees, they should come with two tags: one for variety and one for rootstock. In recent years, DWN has mostly used Citation for plums and pluots (with some exceptions). In my experience, all DWN trees on Citation are infected with crown gall. If you have heavy soil, these trees will most likely die within five years.

3 Likes

How do you get around the crown gall problem? Soil is Seattle is sandy. Sandy but well mulched in my garden :slight_smile:

1 Like

I don’t have personal experience with growing trees in a sandy soil, so I don’t have a definite answer, but I think it should be better for the crown gall situation, compared to a heavy clay soil like in my place. I had a lot of DWN trees on Citation and all of them declined and eventually died from crown gall. I have several trees on Citation from other nurseries, and most of them are doing well, so I think this is a problem with DWN trees that come infested with crown gall. I know some other people had similar experiences. You can use the search function to find older topics that discussed this issue.

1 Like

That is very helpful thank you!
What nurseries do you recommend that have healthy root stocks?

When did the crown Gall problem start? I have had my flavor queen combo in the ground since 2016. I would suppose issues would have manifested by now.

1 Like

Is your tree on Citation or Myro? Myro is more vigorous and less susceptible, so it has much better chance to do well.

1 Like

Im, sure its Citation. I got it from Raintree at the time.

Raintree trees do not have this problem, I wrote above about DWN trees having problem with crown gall. I also wrote: “I have several trees on Citation from other nurseries, and most of them are doing well.”

I defiantly had DWN tags on my Raintree trees but maybe I simply got them before this problem started.

I’m curious about this because, as far as I know, Raintree sources DWN varieties directly from DWN. If you click “where to buy” for a particular variety on their website, most of them will have Raintree, OGW, Bay Laurel, GrowOrganic.com, etc listed as retailers with said variety.
Most of my stone fruit is on DWN citation and has been in ground for 3-4 years. Heavy clay in Elk Grove, Ca, so perhaps similar conditions to yours. FK pluot died suddenly last summer and FQ pluot had to be chopped down underneath what looked to be crown gall. All stone fruit on citation besides apricots have gotten hit by borers pretty badly, and citation is definitely vulnerable to bacterial canker, which probably isn’t helped by my cultural practices such as close spacing. But my sweet cherries are so way less issues with canker, etc. No issues thus far with myro, controller, Lovell, newroot, or krymysk 6 rootstocks for stone fruits. Not to mention the 40 year old Santa Rosa plum which remains strong and productive.
Don’t think I would go with citation again if I did it all over again. Seems like the trees on citation that are in raised beds have fared better, but that’s not an option for all of my orchard. At least I’ve picked up some rudimentary grafting skills so that I can afford to replace trees, and pluots fruit relatively quickly here. Sad about the FK, it’s just so darn delicious especially when grown in this climate.

1 Like

In our climate, Citation also gets stressed by summer heat and limited water. I would guess this stress might contribute to its demise from crown gall, compared to its performance in more temperate climates. It’s also susceptible to bacterial canker.

1 Like

True, the FK may have croaked due to the early heat last year combined with stingy water and some health issues.
This winter is giving me the opportunity to test citation’s tolerance for wet feet, that’s for sure. We’ll see who wakes up in the spring lol.

3 Likes

I have quite a few FK and FQ on citation from DWN, planted only a year back. Our soil is also heavy clay (silt loam). We planted the trees on a raised bed. Let’s see how it goes after this (record-breaking) wet winter in Sacramento county. Keeping my fingers crossed!

1 Like