https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PGZvLi1FBE
video compares gi3, gi5, gi6 on kgb, tsa, ssa and ufo. best combo was gi3-ufo on (I think) 5 foot in-row spacing. tsa was close behind which could be a good home grower setup since it could possibly do without a trellis (on g5). ufo yields were extremely good and it has an interesting shape that might be fun in a landscape where you’d otherwise put an espalier tree
I bought his new cherry book (with Lynn Long, Greg Lang, Clive Kaiser)
https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781786398284/Sweet-Cherries
it mentioned the MSU “corette” cherry rootstocks from Dr. Amy Iezzoni that are being trialed now. They’re all in the gisela 3 size range and are potentially even more precocious and productive. could be good choices for home growers in the next few years as they exit trials, if there’s a source (they’re patented). The trials are interesting because they’re doing 1ft spacing in some cases. if they get a working formula for this then home growers could plant a bunch of different varieties in a tight space with some confidence (although at retail tree pricing I still wouldn’t go that tight)
about the book: I’m only partway through and it seems like a lot of the content is re-bundled from stuff I’ve seen elsewhere. but more than half is new and it’s a good survey
I have a tree on one particular cherry rootstock that is not known to sucker, but I’d like to propagate it. Has anyone had luck with propagating cherry rootstock from root cuttings?
The Corette rootstocks came off of restricted sale as of January 1, 2022 and I managed to purchase an assortment of all five, though mostly Clare which is supposed to be the most dwarfing. They were held in cold storage, fully dormant until the last week of April when I planted them out. I was watering today and noticed one of the Clares was in bloom. It is only 16 inches in height, probably two years old, though maybe three, having been propagated by tissue culture so hard to know.
Am I correct in regarding this as being quite precocious?
where’d you buy them?
yeah that thing looks like it wants to flower itself to death like my potted lime and lemon
you probably saw this but some of the more recent advice is toward the idea of balancing rootstock precocity/productivity with scion precocity/productivity. so scions like sweetheart or lapins that are precocious and productive (from self fertility) on their own, get paired with mazzard or k5. older varieties like bing get paired with a highly productive rootstock like g6. as a homeowner I kinda like the idea of precocious/productive rootstock + precocious/productive scion though, I can live with smaller fruit
see Sweet Cherry Cultivars for the Fresh Market | OSU Extension Catalog | Oregon State University
North American Plants, McMinnville Oregon. The problem is, of course, that you need to purchase a big bunch at a time. I’d recommend getting up a group order.
I note that you are relatively local so can drive to McMinnville but be aware that shipping costs have gone through the roof such that the shipping exceeded the cost of the plants.
I contacted Michigan State University and they gave me a list of four or five nurseries that were licensed to grow the Corettes but none of the others would bother with a relatively small request, they deal in providing thousands to growers. One never responded to my calls, another took three or four calls to get through to the right person only to be rejected. NAP was very gracious and I am grateful to them for their cooperation.
where’d you buy them?
Agreed, precociousness is very important, more so because I’m a breeder. My objective is to have a fully pedestrian, high density orchard with trees no taller than head high and hopefully requiring little pruning to keep them that way. Since it is impossible to find more than a handful of cultivars on super-dwarfing rootstocks I buy my desired cultivars on whatever I can find and graft them onto super-dwarfing rootstocks as the opportunity occurs. These Corettes will help a lot because it is impossible to source Gisele-3 or Newroot-1.
I also have a new batch of Krymsk-1 which I’m optimistic will be more dwarfing than Citation.
as a homeowner I kinda like the idea of precocious/productive rootstock + precocious/productive scion though, I can live with smaller fruit
Do you have info on how good Corette rootstocks are regarding their resistance to bacterial canker? Bacterial canker has been the main problem for my cherry trees, and I lost numerous trees to it. I had good luck this year grafting cherries on Adara (on Myro 29C roots), and I hope that will mitigate some of the bacterial canker issues, since myrobalan trees seem to be much more resistant to it compared to cherries. My hope is that even if I loose a branch to bacterial canker, at least I will not loose the entire tree.
I am a bit skeptical about these trials meaning anything for home growers … if you are out for yield in a relatively short period the more dwarfing rootstocks will always win so of course they come out on top in these trials. I bought into that for apples but after losing many older dwarf trees I’m out of the dwarf rootstock business. At least in my climate vigor trumps dwarfing for long-term viability.
@Stan Re: canker I highly recommend the blowtorch treatment. Since I started using it even what looked like life-ending cankers just stopped in their tracks. I cut off some bark to see how far the canker has gone, then blowtorch including a wide margin around all the browned wood.
This Corette rootstock looks like Romance series from Canada.
