Our last storm-induced breakage at the crown was a Discovery on B9 grafted in 2018. We have lots of rootstock, including several in the Geneva series, but they were all fine this time.
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My success has been much better with G41 and G11 than Bud9 but I did have 5 Pink Lady snap in year 3 during a high wind event. All trees were tightly clipped to the trellis but overloaded with fruit. No more problems since on several hundred new trees on G41 or G11. Both are vigorous rootstocks in my hot area and produce the size tree I expected from Bud9, Unfortunately Bud9 produces trees that are too small to be profitable here. but nobody understood that when we planted a bunch of them 15 years ago…
We have bought a lot of trees from David Vernon at Century Farm Orchard over the years. He prefers MM111 but also sells many varieties on Bud9. He keeps a good inventory of heritage varieties and will custom graft from customer scionwood too. Very helpful fellow. He is custom budding some OFW on G41 for us. Lots of commercial nurseries will custom bud specific rootstock/variety combinations but most require order for 100 trees and a down payment.
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Hi John
Have you tried G890? If so have they been staked against windstorms? What do you think about this dwarf rootstock variety?
I bought 5ea G890’s on 05-Sep-2019. Used W&T grafts of 2 ea: Cortland, 2 ea:Tompkins King and 1 ea: Belle de Boskoop varieties.
I bought these to hopefully eventually replace my full sized Cortland and Tompkins King so I can reduce water consumption and pruning efforts. With our typical dry summers the mature trees consume a lot to get larger sized apples.
So far my G890s are doing ok. I have them staked since our windstorms here are often severe. I’m not so sure they can be free standing trees. This year the Cortland and King are fruiting first time. What has been your experience?
Dennis
Kent wa
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I planted my first tree on G890 this year, but it is not in the orchard, but by our creek near the road. My wife wanted a Golden Hornet crab as an ornamental, so I got her one. It was only available on G890, and I have heard good things about it on this forum. It looks very healthy and quite vigorous after 4 months, but that’s as much as I can say about it at this time.
Since we live 20 minutes from Cummins and I used to drive by it on my commute to work every day, it sure has been handy, and our shipping costs have been zero.
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N = 1 here, but my dad has a G.890 tree (Williams Pride scion) and they have certainly seen tree-breaking winds and have not had it break. It is quite vigorous and seems to be doing OK as a free-standing tree. But n = 1 is hardly anything to go off of.
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I have about 20 trees on g890. 2-4 years old. No breakages yet. We have had winds here up to 80 but not that often.
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I had a few 3rd year chip-budded G935’s and G210’s (nursery bought) survive hurricane Fiona (150km+ winds). One broke away from its stakes and went horizontal for the storm. Also a bunch of G969 W&T (my own work) grafted whips that mostly stayed attached to their trellis. Never had any graft union breakages. Added some G41’s from a supplier this year so I’ll report back after the next hurricane. They’re on a tall spindle 3-wire trellis though.
When asked about this issue one major supplier here (1 million trees per year) told me they bench graft G41 and G11 when as small of caliber as possible - less than 1/4". Their W&T graft worksmanship sucks (very sloppy), so they can’t be too worried about the issue, or perhaps most of their customers are producers with modern trellis systems.
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If the G-890 trees aren’t well staked, they will snap off clean at the graft in windstorms.
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Drought, root rots, cold temps, even limbs falling from trees or my big butt has been the death of a few G890 (and various other roots)
I’ve yet to see one snapped at the graft by the wind.
So, maybe it has to also be bearing a heavy load of fruit at the time of the big wind events?
Zero I think. (But, I’m talking about containerized trees, not those in the ground.)
@BlueBerry Interesting. I had temps down to -5F this winter and my containerized G969s are all fine. Perhaps 890s are a little more sensitive.
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Can’t say, I have no 969’s.
B-10 and Antonovka are a couple roots I’ve had little trouble with. M-111 the most when grown in pots.
Seems most of the Geneva roots aren’t very tolerant of dry spells without irrigation. Perhaps G202 I’ve done the best with in that regard. (For if I lose the graft, usually the G202 pushes sprouts from below – something 890 seldom does.
I’ve trialed many rootstocks across ~20 years, some under just a few trees and others under larger numbers. I’m in the high desert of northern Nevada, so winters are cold(ish) and summers are hot during the day, and relatively cool at night. Humidity is always low, and we don’t get much precipitation (shadowed out by the Sierra directly to the west), so I irrigate.
The first major grafting I did was to G16 and G30 roots. I didn’t keep good notes back then, so I don’t have numbers grafted to each, but given the reported vigor of G16 vs G30, most the 16s failed within the first six or seven years. I’m fairly certain I grafted disease free scions from the Geneva repository, but I also graft new varieties to many of my trees over time, so it’s entirely possible I grafted infected wood above the original variety. I don’t know if this eventually works it’s way down to the rootstock, but the bottom line is that G16 is not a good choice in my environment. G30 has performed better, but I’ve also lost a number of those trees. Those that remain are healthy and vigorous.
I ordered 25 G890 roots and five G969 roots in 2017 (Cummins, I think) and ended up with more than 50 of the 890s. Somebody was clearing stock or couldn’t count, it seems. Anyway, 890 has performed better than 969 thus far, as the latter seem more prone to sunburn, a real issue in these parts. I’ve got around 30 trees on 890, and most will deliver their first good crops this year—the previous three years saw late frosts that removed 80-95% of my fruit, otherwise I expect many of these trees would have fruited by ‘21 at the latest. The 969 trees are all smaller, three have sunburn injuries, which doesn’t help vigor, and one died two or three years ago. They, too, will deliver crops this year, but far fewer apples.
Although we get high wind events here preceding winter storms and in thunderstorms, I haven’t had any trees break off in in the wind. My orchard is protected enough that the trees are rarely exposed to the worst gusts. I’ve staked most of these trees this year due to the fruit load, but should be able to remove that support in a couple more years as trunks and central leaders size up enough to carry such loads without leaning, although it will probably take the 969 trees a couple years beyond that before they’ll be sturdy enough to stand straight without support. The G890 in particular grows a pretty tree.
I also have trees on B118, M26, M106, and M111. I don’t like B118. True to reputation, many of my B118 trees have been slow to develop good anchorage in spite of vigorous top growth, so even trees in ground for more than a decade still require support else they’d topple in a strong wind when fully loaded with fruit. The graft union on many of these trees is also ugly, with the scion 50% or more larger than the stock…makes me think it will snap at some point, though none have up to now, so hopefully it’s just cosmetic.
M26 shows low vigor in my lean soil, a rocky clay loam with a tough, but not completely impermeable hardpan at 12-16”. I won’t use it again.
M106 is my favorite stock so far. It’s vigorous enough, precocious, and doesn’t sucker nearly as badly as M111, the recommended stock for this area (for good reason, since it’s drought tolerant and anchors well right away). My three issues with M111 are the previously mentioned suckering issue, it’s too vigorous for my tight planting scheme (8-9’ spacing, with similar spacing between rows), and it takes forever to start bearing here, 7+ years vs 3-4 for M106.
Time will tell in G890 proves as durable, productive, and appropriately vigorous as M106, but it’s a solid 2nd best thus far, and I’d happily add more trees on it if my wife would let me grow the orchard. 
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@blueberrythrill What kind of trellis support do you suggest for heavily loaded G11 to prevent previous problems you had?
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We are making a few changes as we plant new trees.
Moved the posts closer together. Now around 35 feet. 4 trellis wires or 5 wires on the 12 foot posts.
Replaced the Gripples with more traditional ratchet wire tightener at the end of the row so we can pull the wires much tighter. We noticed that our Gripples loosened over time.
Still plan to use the same clips to attach the trees to the wire. No conduit at each tree.
Here are the clips:
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I’ve never even thought about the difference in ease of grafting particular rootstocks, but I assume that as with trees on any given rootstock, the more the vigor in the tree the more the vigor of the grafts. Often the apple grafts that don’t take start off growing very slowly.
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So they say, but I’ve still not had my first apple from a G.30 rootstock.
Though I’ve grafted over a dozen varieties in the past 6 years to it.
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A year old but I just came across it recently - Some interesting stuff being looked at in regards to winter hardiness, but a little strange they didn’t include good control comparisons in the trial - no B118 or M111 for comparison:
https://blogs.cornell.edu/enychp/tree-fruit/apples/tree-fruit-apple-cold-hardiness-research-update/
I just posted my deliberations… leaning towards B118, but still considering m111 or G210
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I was lucky enough to have sugarwood fruit in its 3rd year on that stock. Thats the only tree I have on it so not a huge sample. Seems like maybe its variable in different locations. 6a, upper hudson valley ny; deep loamy sand here.
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