Thank you for your write up, I’m glad to hear that G41 is a viable alternative as well. What’s you’re soil like? I’m planning on planting in both heavy clay and kinda crappy shale, which is yet another reason I’d like M111 or Antonovka. 4-5 years to fruit in suboptimal conditions is pretty acceptable to me.
I fully plan on getting extra root and interstem stocks and stooling them for future use. I see no reason to pay $3-4 per rootstock when they’re that easy to grow yourself.
I think the M111 do better in heavy clay or heavier soils in general. They are pretty tough and take droughts pretty well.
I really have been enjoying the interstem varieties. Nice sized all in all.
The soil here is I think “very good”. The weeds can certainly attest to that! My home orchard area was mature forest up until a logging crew clear cut it in 2010 or so. I can put boot on shovel and sink it fairly easily. Black and loamy and just slightly leaning towards acidic. Have to go down a foot or so to hit clay. Rocks are few and far between.
For M111 it does seem fairly easy to “stool” them and have free rootstock going forward. For the G41 part I just have a few growing in pots and snip off a 1’ or so piece to use as the interstem. Those will hopefully keep me going for as long as I want to keep grafting.
So far probably the tallest point on any of these is around 8’ to perhaps 9’. I know an M111 tree can be kept small with lots of pruning, I’m pleased with these trees size without having to fight that battle though. All in all I’m very happy with them and optimistic as to how they’ll perform. Fingers crossed most will not require any staking after a few more years either…
Good luck!
I think dwarf interstems on seedling roots are a great draught resistant crop method.
And the mention of Bud 9 on Callery is great!
In my experience Callery pear seedlings are compatible with all apple grafts, 5 varieties on 2 seedling Callery trees is the extent of my experience though.
And another surprising tip I got from someone with experience, is that it’s okay to bury part of the interstem, that surprised me.
@adrian as far as Antonovka it’s still the standard full size rootstock in Russia and much of Europe, it may be the longest living apple tree so disease resistance must be good and adding Bud 9 adds some fireblight resistance, so that must be a good combination.
Some years ago, I put 8-10 inch interstems of OHxF 513 between callery rootstock and a dozen or more fruiting pear varieties. While OHxF 513 supposedly produces trees only about 65% of standard, I can’t ascertain any significant dwarfing of any of them… most are 15-20 ft tall.
I believe this is an ideal combination for drought resistant trees, the interstem needs to be pretty long from what I understand, I would think at least 6 inches for most applications.
The tap roots from seedling trees greatly contribute to drought resistance, anchoring, and mineral uptake which leads to higher mineral and vitamin content in the fruit, as well as more disease resistance in the trees.
I suspect fireblight is actually an extreme form of copper deficiency, but I haven’t proved it yet.
Your analysis on enzymes and dwarfing is amazing. Thank you for educating me! 
I am curious how essential it is to let that tap root grow out actually is, and if it would be possible, or better to grow them in an air-prune box. This is a common method for growing seedling to transplant or for sale, such as chestnuts and hazelnuts.
This is an interesting guy he has lots of seedlings for sale and for things like seaberry and plants without well established named varieties it seems like he does quite a good job.
