Major problem with Geneva rootstocks?

General Fruit Growing
81

I have seen lots of articles in publications dedicated to commercial apple production discussing problems with Geneva rootstocks. Virus problems or trees that break at the graft union on Geneva RS are way too common.

Its clear to me that some of the Geneva rootstocks have serious problems that should reduce or eliminate their use. Others Geneva RS are superior. How do you tell?

G11 produced almost 1/2 bushel per tree in year 2 for me. Almost unbelievable. The trees grew so much they broke the trellis.

2 Likes
82

There are two different discussions to be had.

  1. What was responsible for @Chikn failed grafts?
  2. Geneva rootstock suitability.

The point that I was making was on this specific case (discussion one). @Chikn explained he has the same Geneva rootstocks fine with cleft grafts. It was only the bud grafted supplied by Cummins that broke. How do you explain that? It would be wrong to assign blame to Geneva if it’s not to blame in this specific case, even if they do have issues. If your dog has a tendency to steal food off the counter, do you smack it’s bottom every time something is missing? Yeah, the dog has to be better trained, but you’d feel rather bad the one time someone else decided to finish off your BLT.

If we’re just talking about discussion two, Geneva rootstock suitability is something that needs to be discussed. It’s clear that are issues relating to cultivars. The problem is that this discussion doesn’t really relate (at least at first glance) to discussion one. If we have the same cultivars doing well on cleft grafts on the same Geneva rootstocks that @Chikn self-grafted, then yes, I would say this thread is an overreaction, because the evidence at hand doesn’t fit. One person’s bad experience is being used to bridge a wider discussion on Geneva, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean that Geneva is what is at fault in this specific case.

Problematic Pairings with Geneva
Good to know Signs of Brittle Graft Unions
Can Science Strengthen Graft Unions
Handle Geneva 41 with Care
Cornell-Geneva Apple Rootstocks for Weak Growing Scion Cultivars

Probably not that easy for the layman to understand Geneva without a lot of additional research. I read a lot of papers and I still feel rather uninformed in certain respects. I wish it was easier. I don’t really know how it should be easier. I can only share my workflow. My selections on Geneva were all made after I contacted about ten nurseries operating in both Canada and US, specializing in the cultivars I was interested in. I asked about cultivar vigor on rootstocks (cause I want to do fraken-apples at some point). I asked about any orchards they were working with that made large orders of those cultivars on Geneva or Malling. I contacted those orchards and had email exchanges asking about vigor, graft union, cold hardiness, transplant strength, and in-field disease resistance (tolerance vs resistance). I also contacted about a dozen large scale u-pick organic orchards to ask rootstocks and their in field experiences (for the cultivars I was interested in). I contacted many of the names mentioned in the articles, because news articles are usually edited for length and content. It’s better to get the unedited feedback directly from the primary source. This resulted into an email exchange with two of the Geneva researchers and two orchard operators who experienced the graft union failures mentioned in the articles. I probably went through two to three months of correspondence, as some were international in nature.

Geneva doesn’t really make it easy to hunt down the information. You really have to go out of your way to do your own research. Ideally, there would be like a database maintained recommending specific cultivars on specific rootstocks and warnings attached to bad pairings.

Again, if @Chikn bad experience is kind of a bridge into a general discussion about Geneva I think that makes a lot of sense. However, it doesn’t make sense if we’re using @Chikn specific experience to say Geneva is bad, because the supplied evidence doesn’t quite match up (his cleft-grafted on the same Geneva that are doing fine).

I hope this better clarifies what I meant to originally state. And again, @Chikn you have my sympathies for your downed trees. I do hope that you get more solid answers at some point. I recommend contacting the Geneva researchers directly if Cummins won’t respond.

4 Likes
83

Like you I have read a bunch of papers dealing with rootstock trials. I especially like the NC-140 trials since the trial sites are spread across the country and are more likely to be relevant to my local climate and soil conditions. Although it does seem strange that the trial write-ups omit important site information like the hardiness zone, heat zone, soil type, etc. I can look up some the information which isn’t very convenient but things like soil type would require me to contact the researchers directly. But I am just a backyard grower with a few trees- I am not sure they would be interested in talking to me.

At same time, G11 and G41 seems to be accepted by commercial growers and these guys have a lot more to lose than me. If you’re a commercial grower planting a thousand trees per acre widespread graft union failures would cost real money not to speak of the time needed to replant. So I wonder about the commercial growers and especially how the ones who got Geneva rootstock in the initial introduction and now have mature trees.

What did your contacts at the nurseries and commercial orchards have to say about Geneva series rootstocks? Are graft union failure rates high? Is more information about scion compatibility available? I know about the G41/honeycrisp and few others but is there more information out there?

-Mroot

1 Like
84

I’m not a commercial grower (though we do grow a lot on several acres). I chose to contact u-pick orchards because their business is all about direct-consumer interaction. They welcome visitors and are (generally) very open to answering questions even during the off-season (most of my communication was done during spring and early summer). The same goes for the researchers. I believe all of them are teaching professors, busy with lectures and grading papers, but they made time to answer questions when I emailed, provided you are patient to wait for a response. I did contact I think NC researchers about peach and prunus rootstocks once, but I think I got a lot more assurance about my choices from contacting the orchards to be honest.

Frankly, I don’t remember everything everyone they wrote to me. I’d have to go back to my emails to reread. I just know the limited [five or six] cultivars I selected for (high disease resistance) are basically in the safe (with regard to graft union, not speaking of other issues). Some u-picks had like 50+ and I think one had like 100+ something cultivars. I limited all my questions to things I had already narrowed my list down to grow (prospective list of like fifteen to twenty).

That previous paper I linked to has some more information on prospective weak union cultivars. It should be easy to look up parental/cross/related genetic info for cultivars you’re interested in to see if there is any match. Barring that I would contact orchards and the researchers.

Cornell-Geneva Apple Rootstocks for Weak Growing Scion Cultivars

cultivar%20graftstrenth

We have received several reports of trees breaking in the nursery with G.41 and with G.935 when grafted with some brittle varieties. We have previously conducted some research on this problem and have begun new research projects in 2014 in collaboration with Brent Black at Utah State University to evaluate graft union strength with his graduate student Stuart Adams. In 2014 we evaluated the method of grafting (chip bud vs. whip and tongue graft vs. machine V graft). The graft union strength has been evaluated on G.41, G.935, and M.9 with several cultivars. at three times during the season (June, August and October). We also evaluated several plant growth regulators, which could be sprayed in the nursery to stimulate stronger graft unions. This research is not yet ready for publication but it is very promising. Nevertheless is seem clear with some varieties like Honeycrisp and Envy, G.41 had a weaker union than M.9Nic29.

Just noticed that blurb in the paper. I haven’t contacted Brent Black, but he seems like someoneelse worth talking to. The said research was published by Stuart Adams as his master thesis. He now works for Willow Drive Nursery, one of the licensed rootstock producers of Geneva. Maybe another point of contact.

1 Like
85

In my area growing apples or any tree fruit is really just a fun science experiment. I expect the same is true in other locations. My apple growing science experiment lasted 7 years and cost about $15K. I used the best advice I could get, some was academic research based on field trials (even some from my state) and some help came from nurseries or other fruit growers. Even had several PHD level apple extension specialist here evaluating the apple orchard and making suggestions. These same folks participate in the NC-140 Rootstock trials, speak at grower conferences and publish papers in horticultural journals

Unfortunately, in my case the experts were often wrong. I only have about eight 100 foot rows out of the original 32 rows that I started with which are profitable. but not profitable enough to cover the losses from the other 24 rows.

8 successes out of 32 tries means I failed about 75% of the time! A little surprising the smartest apple folks were wrong so often

Geneva roots remind me of when software companies fixed enough problems to make the product sell-able, then promoted it heavily, sold a bunch of it and let the paying customers discover and report the bugs!

5 Likes
86

I still have faith in the scientific process, maybe because I’m from that academic background. If I didn’t, I’d immediately poo-poo those NC trial results or completely ignore them (probably to my peril).

Science always has new information, so it’s not static as you pointed out. I’d like to think those folks weren’t so wrong as they were drawing conclusions from the limited information available at the time; incomplete theorem as it were.

There are always outliers to every data set. Idiopathic diseases in medicine. And real-world data has so many confounding variables it makes scientific papers difficult to draw definitive answers using meta-analysis. There’s always that pesky p-value. “We can be 95% confident that” yada yada yada.

I think that’s partially why I was gravitating toward my communication with orchard owners/operators.

I think Geneva reminds me less of software, wherein there the errors are often known to exist but pressure pushes companies to push to consumers for early market share.

Geneva reminds me more of the shiny new bauble. It’s the new tech; the one that holds the greatest promise. And like all new things, high risk comes high reward. It really is understated that at least for Geneva, you’re best served to do your own research.

2 Likes
87

I am curious about the 75% that failed. What was the causes for failure? Low yield, trees unmanageable, rootstock union failure or? I feel your pain when it comes to the failures. I tried grafting cherries one year and had problems. I put a bunch of Montmorency on Krymsk 5 and the graft unions looked weird and the scion produced little growth. I found out later Montmorency is incompatible with Krymsk 5. However, when I grafted, it was claimed to be compatible with tart cherries. And in USA- Montmorency is the main tart cherry cultivar…you wonder if anyone actually tested it.

Having said this talking to nurseries, reading papers, and listening to experts is basically all the information we can get. I wish had more information before making my planting decisions. If this was more than a hobby I think I would make test plots, collect data for several years before committing to larger plantings. In other words, do my own mini-study. Fortunately for me this is backyard hobby and my failures are less costly. But even as hobby I wish to avoid the loss of time. If I had know about krymsk 5 problem I could of grafted something else and not wasted a graft season making grafts that would never work.

-Mroot

1 Like
88

Good to know information about the M111 rootstocks because I was looking at the Api Etoile grafted on that particular rootstock and really don’t want to wait so long for it to Fruit although the website I found the tree on says it will Fruit within 2-3 years.

1 Like
89

That’s generally been the case for the pre-grafted MM111 trees that I’ve planted here in Northern California, benchgrafts excluded.

1 Like
90

Meaning that they took a long time to fruit?

1 Like
91

On my limited experience with m111. Its depends on what variety. Wealthy for example flowered and set a few the year I planted it. While a few had one or two on some by third year. This year on 4 year olds those that had one or two last year have twenty or so, others with none last year have 1 or 2 this year.

2 Likes
92

Meaning that they took 2-3 years to fruit, as the website that you mentioned suggested. I don’t doubt that the variety grafted influences this somewhat, but most of the varieties that I’ve observed have only taken a couple of years to bloom and begin fruiting.

3 Likes
93

That’s some great information to have, I was thinking it would be much longer. Thanks

1 Like
94

That’s not as long as I was told it would be before the trees started setting fruit Spurs so, that’s some great personal experience your sharing, thank you.

1 Like
95

@Heirloom. I have 2 Hawkeyes one had two last year the other had none. This year the one that had 2 has twenty the one that had none has 1 or 2. Both planted in 2015. It’s also how you train them I’m trying to train at 45 doesn’t always happen as life gets in way. Same as my grimes golden it had 3 this year about 25 this year. I thinned a bunch off hopefully they don’t go bi annual on me.

1 Like
96

I don’t have any Geneva rootstocks on the farm.
So…I have never had a problem with them.
What I do have is a lot of trees on mostly mm111 and some mm106.
Many ( most) are ~ 25 yrs old and very productive.
MM111 is a large tree, slow to produce , often 5 yrs , or more.
Has been trouble free, no leaning , no breaking. Adapts well to wet or dry area. No support required .
M M106 is great as well, just won’t tolerate a wet area, gets crown rot, in a wet area.
As I become more Leary of ladder work, I wish I had (could have) more dwarfing trees.
But the deer just won’t allow that here.
I would end up with nothing if my trees were within a deers reach.
So after 25 + years I am very happy with these ,and am planting more

4 Likes
97

4 to 7 would be more accurate than 2-3 in my view.

3 Likes
98

Yeah… 4 trees on M111, 5th year, one of them has 2 apples. That’s it… Hoping for “next year”!

2 Likes
99

It looks like your trees are progressing well as each year goes by. Thanks for your input.

1 Like
100

My orchard soil it’s between a sandy to a loomy consistency, I to have no interest in climbing up a ladder to reach Fruit. I’m happy with my M7 trees so far but don’t like the leaning tendencies of them. M106 is the choice for this coming season of Grafting.

2 Likes