I live in central MN in the upper region of zone 4a. Zone 3b isn’t far away. Does anyone have experience with growing apple trees on the MM 111 in a similar or colder climate? Do you think it would be hardy enough? I’m thinking of ordering an apple tree on that rootstock.
I’ve got numerous trees, both grafted and purchased on m111. No losses so far over a decade +.
Zone 4a with 3b lows frequently
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I have 119 trees on M.111 with no cold hardiness issues, Z4b in the Adirondacks.
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Good information and confirmations here. Thanks @smsmith and @AndySmith
I’ve got some M111s going in 3b in a few months!
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Snow cover before it hits -20 or lower definitely helps with winter hardiness on young m111s. I’ve got some young ones in the ground now waiting for grafts this spring. We haven’t seen -20 yet this winter, but it looks like we may on Sunday. Plenty of -5 to -12 lows so far and with zero to limited snow cover. Maybe 4" on the ground now. This spring should be telling for hardiness.
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Your weather forecast sounds like ours except I think Monday / Tuesday is our cold day and we have about 11 inches of snow on the ground now.
We did have a very dry December with little to no snow though. What we did get melted with a “warm” mid-40s two day streak before getting back to teens and single digits.
It’s that freeze and thaw plus the occasional lack of snow protection like you mentioned that we will have to see how it goes.
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i put in 2 apples last spring on m111 from fedco. black oxford and williams pride. we havent seen -0 yet and have about 5in. of snow right now. we had several warm spells in dec that melted most of our snow. some cold coming by thurs but just barely breaking below 0.
I have mostly M111 in my orchard. We get -20 weather at times during the winters. So far, over 10 years, I have not lost a single M111 tree either with the severe cold nor the extreme heat and droughts we have had.
That’s positive news.
Have you lost any other root stocks too cold weather?
What other root stocks do you have and how do they fair in comparison?
Thanks for the replies. I do have a Pomme Gris apple tree on MM 111 rootstock currently. It’s done well so far. This is only it’s 3rd winter in the ground. The previous two winters didn’t get real cold that I recall… for central MN that is. The coldest winter that I recall here was in 1996/97 I think. I think the coldest we got then was -38F. We had a lot of snow cover that year. I had many apple trees that made it through that winter, because they were just recently grafted and were totally under snow when it got that cold LOL. I think there was about 3 feet of snow cover then.
Most of mine are are on the M111 as I mentioned. I had 4 apple trees on G series rootstocks- they all cracked on the trunk when we had a heavy rain one year. I took out two of them because the cracking stunted the growth I believe.
M7 rootstocks do okay as well, just not very well rooted to where they lean. So if you have a very cold winter and the tree is leaning the roots may be damaged with the extreme cold winter temps.
A few years here lately we have had -30 winter temps for a week or so at a time.
I have not had issues with other rootstocks with the extreme cold temps, so far. I think the M111 is a better choice overall with the extreme drought conditions we get here and also the extreme cold temp swings we get in the winter.
I hope this helps.
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-30 temps or windchills? I had no idea -30 was even a consideration as far south as you are, especially for a week or more.
We can get -10 or so without the windchill. With the windchill it can get to the -30 temps. It did so the last two winters here.
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