Cummins Nursery recommends using the whip and tongue graft for G210 and others for higher success rate.
When I started to read your message about a whip. ā¦I thought you were going to say you whip your trees!
Welp, came to this thread to say that of the three G.935 trees I started out with in 2018 at this house are all are now off to the wood chipper or will be soon.
We are 80 mph winds on Friday with a thunderstorm and I lost two more G.935 trees snapped at the graft union.
My Liberty had a very good crop and was completely snapped off and my Esopus Spitzenburg is 80%/90% snapped off and bend the stake it was tied to. There could be enough connection on the Spitz for it to make it, and I put in an emergency bridge graft on the off chance it could heal in fast and get the apples to ripen. 
Now Iām off looking for Liberty on M7 or M26. Anyone know of a supplier for Spitz that isnāt Cummins (so I can get a non-Geneva root)?
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I have to wonder how a tree grafted on any other rootstock would have fared. Frightening sounding storm, hopefully no one was hurt and your only property damage was these trees.
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Century Farms in NC, for one. David Vernon is great to work with.
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Trees of Antiquity has them, too, on MM111. Their trees are often larger than those available elsewhere, but more expensive, too - and the shipping isnāt cheap.
Like David, Neil is a good guy. Canāt go wrong either place.
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M106 if your soil isnāt heavy clay and if it drains.
Liberty on 106 is a good combo.
Not impressed appearance-wise on grafts from Century Farmā¦(but theyāre all alive, and thatās more than I can say for trees from Cummins or Fedco or some others.)
Sorry to see that. =( What was the caliper at the break?
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Thanks for the concern. I havenāt heard of much property damage except some garden sheds etc. We went through a weed-out event 3 years ago with 20-30 min of 100 to 120 mph+ winds in a true derecho (long-distance straight line wind event). So I think damage with this 80 mph storm was minimal. There arenāt many big trees left in town to damage thoughā¦ so there is that.
It was 3 or 3.5 inches at the graft union and probably 2.5 or 3 inches at the scion above the graft. The other tree that is broken but not complete was about 2.5 inches.
Heavy clay, yes. But the spot where these are drains just fine. But there might a be high water table in spring as Iāve noticed mottling in the soil from that.
Thank you. I will check them out. Iāve not heard of the NC nursery and forgot about Trees of Antiquity.
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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 agoā¦
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 G890ās 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. Iām 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 thatās 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 G935ās and G210ās (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 G41ās from a supplier this year so Iāll report back after the next hurricane. Theyāre 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 canāt 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 arenāt 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)
Iāve 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?