Should add for comparison:
B9 267
B118 2844
Any of you all with lots of 210 experience, did you dormant bench graft, top work, or bud?
Looks to be an old dead thread, but it popped up when i was reinvestigating G210. Looks like it has good winter hardiness!? Tree Fruit: Apple Cold Hardiness Research Update – CCE Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program
I’m Finally ready to get a small orchard established but I’ve been rethinking everything that I’ve done and want to do. With the grafting hobby/experiments I’ve made an absolute hodgepodge of stuff and I’m hesitant to put that out in rows. Sparing my thoughts on that new hardiness zone map I think winter hardiness needs high priority. I think that Cornell research is pretty on point with what I’ve seen die after three winters getting down in the -30’s (and beyond). No Goldrush here, but I still have a Dabinett.
I bought a tree on G210, heavy clay in a frost pocket and the rootstock survived but Splendour is a z5… it died.
I’m thinking about M111, B118, or G210. Not interested in a 50% success rate but still deliberating because of dwarfing and fireblight resistance.
One update I would add regarding G.210 that may be helpful or discouraging: Any G.210 that I planted out, ungrafted in the nursery bed for a year responded to grafting much better than what I ordered and grafted in the same year. G.210 was often one of those root stocks received from the nursery with few or no roots. It seemed just one year of nursery bed growth established them enough to improve graft takes and ensure growth. However, I can’t say the survival rate of the root stock itself would necessarily be better when planting them out for that 1-year period, you may still see only a 40% survival rate. Also, the trees that did survive, and which did sustain a successful graft, have been nice trees in the orchard. Perhaps that’s the key with G.210, let someone else do the grafting and just buy established trees.
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I’ve decided that Buying ready trees is worth every penny but I guess I’m stubborn, penny wise, and pound foolish. Now that I have most of the varieties I want I think I’ll start learning to bud.
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I’ve bought a variety of rootstocks. I’m a back yard gardener. I don’t need my trees to look uniform. And this means that if one rootstock has a disastrous failure in my conditions, it won’t take out all my trees.
Fwiw, the tree that’s doing best (in no small part because i planted it first and it got a good spot) is Jonathan on M111. It took several years to bloom, and tends to be biannual. But it’s been a healthy, low maintenance tree with no suckering or other annoyances.
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My experience with G.210 was the same. A couple years ago I purchased some G.210 and when it arrived I bench grafted it with a number of different varieties and planted in my nursery bed. Almost none of my grafts took. The rootstock survived and the following spring I grafted them again in the nursery bed. Nearly all took. They seem to be doing well in my orchard now but they have been suckering some.
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Tiny sample, but I planted two g.210 from Cummins without a graft and they thrived. I planted them in final locations figuring I’d graft in the field. At the end of the season I t-budded one of them (old unknown tree on property).
The following year I whip and tongued the other (Akane scion from Cummins). Both the whip and tongue and and the t-bud took nicely.
My site is marginal-to-bad (6-8 hours full sun), but I got 6’ growth on both trees in year 1 post graft.
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