Honeycrisp as an interstem?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I was curious if anyone has used Honeycrisp as an interstem? Since Honeycrisp has pretty low vigor I would think it would work.

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#2

I did this last year unintentionally, my grafting class ended up with Honeycrisp on V1 instead of a rootstock alone. I will probably recut much lower and regraft to the rootstock. The Honeycrisp was not helpful, scion of Liberty did ok, not great. Ashmead’s Kernel died, the Honeycrisp put out one attempt at a branch on these.

#3

Honeycrisp as an interstem? Ahem, NO. Since it has trouble moving nutrients either direction, I am sure you can come up with another better candidate.

For instance, I tried D’Arcy Spice, which is low vigor/small tree on Budagovsky 118. DS dropped all fruit at the first heat wave 4 years running. I cut it back to its lowest 9 inches and top-worked it. First graft failed (Harrison; monster tree) & second graft took off (Connell Red, which is vigorous but flavor of fruit insipid here). Now it is becoming my experimental tree. Anything that seems a bit risky in the climate & soil I contend with will go on it.
Healthy tree, plenty of branches to play with; landed on my feet that time.

I had Honeycrisp by accident, cut it all the way to the graft union, & the root stock (Geneva 11) pushed a single shoot from the root. Only one, which is consistent with G11’s low suckering habit & the low amount of nutrients Hoenycrisp allowed it. I will graft Twenty Ounce to it at the first opportunity.

What stock are you working with?

#4

I have a Honeycrisp I topworked many years ago… it pretty much turned into a normal apple tree, no less vigor that I noticed.

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#5

What was the rootstock?

#6

I grafted RI Greening to my Honeycrisp last spring. The RI Greening grew straight up almost 4 feet. (I just cut it back almost 18 inches yesterday).

Now maybe I’ll get fruit on that tree…lol

Scott

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#7

It was m26…

#8

I am actually in the process of moving trees I grafting 2-3 years ago ( on Bud 9) from my vegetable garden to their final planting location. So this is a what if or what I could do next year question. For an understock I was thinking of either M111 or one of the bigger Geneva rootstocks like G890.

#9

Did the HC have low vigor on m26, but the top worked apples didn’t?

I had runting issues with HC on m7. I grafted the HC over to half of a small mature seedling and it grew like weed. It’s just as vigorous as the understock and the William’s Pride on the other half of the tree. Unfortunately, it didn’t fix the any of the other HC disorders.

#10

If you are considering M111 or Geneva890, I can only say MM111 is slow to begin bearing. In all other ways it is a pretty tough root; good to have.
I have Gen890 on hand for grafting, the first time, this spring. On paper it seems to have plenty of strengths. What is odd to me is the variety of ultimate size this stock is supposed to produce, depending on the source. I’ll report when results come in. For now, it will be treated as a larger stock, at least as big as MM106 root stock.

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#11

Oops I didn’t post the right thing above … I was on my phone and didn’t have my historical records handy. The HC tree I pulled a few years ago, I was mixing it up with its neighbor which was a Suncrisp. The whole row is M26 so I got that right, but in fact the ex-HC tree was not all that vigorous after I topworked it with Harrison.

So, it looks like my data is in fact more in support of HC as being a dwarfing interstem. Sorry about the mix-up.

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#12

I have one tree with an odd combination. M111root/HC/Bud9/HC/Liberty. I kept changing my mind, It appears to be growing similar to my other trees with Bud9 intestems.

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