I have a handful of apple trees scheduled to ship to me in the spring, all on G890 rootstock. I don’t plan on adding any other trees this year, but I am preparing my site for a semi-higher density dwarf apple tree planting in 2027. I have never grafted trees so I am planning to purchase trees from the Cummins website. After reading a lot of posts on this forum about various rootstocks, I had planned to try and avoid the G41 rootstock because of graft issues. However, as of now, a lot of the varieties I’m looking at are not available on G11 or G214, just G41. I plan to individually stake my trees instead of a trellis build.
I would love some opinions on G41 and whether or not I should seriously avoid using it or not. Any other opinions on good dwarfing stocks is welcome!
Never having planted G.41, I can’t speak for that rootstock, but I can offer a suggestion…
Personally, I have ordered quite a few things from Cummins over the years and have noticed a few things. I have seen that the available rootstocks for each variety vary from year to year and I have also noticed that they do custom orders.
Since you’re looking to do this in 2027, it may be worth reaching out to them about your wants. The worst that could happen is they say no. Its just a thought, but they seem very reasonable to me.
Some users who live in very windy areas have indeed had graft union failure with G.41
Others who live in less windy areas have had no such issue.
I have ~50 or so trees with G.41 as the interstem. M111 → G.41 → Scion. So two graft unions per tree or a hundred potential breakage points. But… My home orchard area is somewhat protected from wind. When Hurricane Helene came through I had a dozen or so trees get blown over. They only had a piece or two of bamboo giving them extra support, some of that very insufficiently attached. Of all of the ones blown over, no graft union breaks happened. The G.41 portion simply “bent”. I quickly stood them all back up and added additional bamboo staking and all finished that (and the next) season just fine.
If you plan to stake them securely then it probably just depends on how much wind your area sees. And how strong it is. If not extreme, probably be fine…
Wow that sounds pretty incredible. Hard to know what to expect based on what I have read. It seems like it’s only a real issue on certain cultivars? I planned to stake them at multiple points above and below the graft union. I’m in northern Indiana, and it is not particularly windy around me. We get the occasional strong thunderstorm which can produce high winds.
I am glad to hear that your trees made it through the hurricane!
My multi-grafted apple tree on G 41 did not need wind to take it down. In fact, it is in a wind-protected side of the house. A fruit load helped bring my tree down horizontally. Fortunately, the graft union was in tact. It’s staked now. Without staking, it will fall over again when in full production.
What I like is the tree on this rootstock has branched out nicely. It has produced fruit fairly early, in about 3-4 years.
As a commercial grower, I like G41. Trees have been healthy, good crop load, on the more vigorous side of the fully dwarfing stocks - similar to bud 10, maybe a bit less than m26. We are on clay soil. Have not lost any trees to breakage, but they are all trellised. I would definitely stake them well.
Would you mind giving your opinion on how you would go about staking an individual tree? My plan was to try an 8’ or 10’ t post (as heavy duty as I can find) or some kind of angle steel stake. I’d attach it above and below the graft all the way up the leader. I planned on putting the stake just a few inches away.
Some years ago I ordered Edelborsdorfer from Cummins, on G41, as that was the only ready-made tree of this fairly old variety I could find. Some folks surmise it dates to about 1561, a seedling of Borsdorfer, which is truly ancient.
I graft regularly to Gen30 & G30 had gotten bad press due to some graft failures when Gala was put to that. Since I had none with a wide sampling of cultivars, I thought the risk worth while.
The whip stood on two years growth over the graft when arriving. Six years later it carried its first 13 apples. It stood at nearly 11 feet tall and grew mostly upright in structure. I grow my trees as central leader bush. A thunderstorm in mid-July came from straight south - between the houses on this block which also runs north-south - and the burst of wind bringing the storm (measured by NWS at 50 mph or slightly more) broke the tree at the graft union. Clean as a whistle.
If you get anything on Gen41 graft, or find someone who will graft, on a branch or another stock for anything you really want to see to maturity. OR build gale force wind sturdy trellis OR treble stakes to all your trees on that stock.
My understanding is that one important factor is that the stake should be buried deeply. I’ve read 1/4-1/3 of the stake in ground to prevent the stake/post from pulling out or over.
I imagine @downhome has a commercial type trellis with wires and very secured ends with anchor posts and tie backs. Then each tree usually gets a lightweight stake and is clipped to the trellis wire and stakes with u shaped clips or ties.
Definitely not interested in building a whole trellis system. The “high density” systems seem really interesting for a home grower just to be able to plant more varieties in the same amount of space. However, I’d like to find a balance between that and the simplicity of just using a single stake per tree. I do think it would be important to really sink in the stake as you said. My hope is that a 10’ t post put 3 or so feet in the ground will suffice, and that I could prune the trees in a similar way that a commercial grower would.