Only looking at bud-9 or M111 right now but thanks anyway.
Absolutely no squirrel, deer, coon, possum pressure on my B9 espellar.
You would have to have it in a special location like I do… right beside my home south wall works great for me… HVAC system near by.
Critters are just not brave enough to go there.
Or… in a properly fenced in location… you could manage 3 … B9 espellar trees in a 30 ft × 6 ft fenced in space.
TNHunter
This is a tough choice and I think you definitely should take vigor of the variety into account, since that makes a dramatic difference. For instance, I grafted some Early Mac onto Bud-10 that is taller in its first year than Reine de Reinettes on G969. This isn’t surprising when you see that Early Mac is listed as more vigorous variety based on this list Scott posted a few years back.
It if was me and I was limited to Bud-9 or M111 I would get anything listed as T3 on Bud-9 and anything T1 or T2 on M111 and deal with them via summer pruning. It is actually more enjoyable to me to be actively pruning and shaping the tree I want vs. just hoping the tree grows enough. When you have the vigor you can make choices, but when you don’t you can be stuck just letting the tree grow how it wants to since you don’t dare prune much away. At least that’s how I feel. How much you are going to fertilize and the quality of your soil probably matters a good bit as well.
The danger of Bud-9 is having a runty little tree that doesn’t produce much or grow much new wood each year. All of my Bud-9 on M111 interstems basically runted out because deer browsed them repeatedly. I eventually pulled them out and have pears on OHxf87 and persimmons in their place, both of which are much more vigorous and I am so much happier. So for me, I’d much rather have to do more summer pruning to keep a tree smaller than have a little tree that can’t carry much fruit, especially when the squirrels, racoons, etc. are busy stealing it.
Keeping the animals off the fruit is going to be essential. With this year’s drought, they are desperate and have stolen everything except my astringent persimmons and the apricots and blackberries I got at the very start of the season before the drought was bad.
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The advice was for anyone else that dials into this topic, as you already know. Your original question has already been thoroughly addressed. On this forum topics take on a life of their own, or rather a life of all interested forum members.
Some have complained about topics that morphed into entirely different subjects and Scott explained how you can stop being notified every time someone writes a comment to such a topic.
The app actually discourages members from starting a new topic that is related to an existing one. But you must know that, you’ve been a member for almost 4 years.
I post advice that I hope can be used for many more than just the creator of any given topic. The difference between 111 and 9 is almost entirely about relative vigor- in fact, between perhaps the most dwarfing rootstock commonly used for apples today and the very most vigorous one. It seems to me to be a rare case where a fruit grower would limit themselves to one or the other so the answers to that specific question probably aren’t widely useful.
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So the first solution they go to is “let’s spend a ton of money restructuring the whole orchard and make every step of taking care of the trees more difficult.” 
Alvin does play some wicked high-pitched tunes, but losing a year or two worth of fruit to his buddies should be enough to turn anyone into a Leonard Cohen fan.
Your clients are very fortunate to have you so they can enjoy their favorite music and great fruit at the same time.
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Just prior to your post, @zendog contributed a very thoughtful response regarding vigor rates for cultivars categorized as T1-T3 and how they are influenced by the rootstock (something I was completely unaware of) that will certainly affect my decision. I therefore disagree that the question has been thoroughly addressed. As I am new to apples, there could be other relevant information out there I’m currently ignorant of.
I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to provide additional information relevant to my needs. You are welcome to contribute whatever you want to the discussion. Frankly, I’m still discussing apples/rootstock and my needs/limitations in every post while this one from you seems squarely aimed at discouraging me from continuing to post, probe, and engage in the conversation. I would really like to remain engaged here. I hope that’s not a problem.
Yes, I am aware the app discourages members from starting a topic related to a new one (it pops up when creating a new thread). Being that my question hasn’t been addressed before, I felt it was unique enough to justify its own thread… Instead of others where more generalist and broad reaching information may be appropriate like “Dwarf rootstock and dwarf fruit tree questions”
I would argue that the dilemma I face is widely useful – at least among beginners. When ordering specific cultivars of apples online, most of the retailers I have found limit the rootstock selections to just 1 or 2 kinds, maybe 3 tops. While bud-9 and m-111 are very different types of rootstock, they also seem to be quite popular in the nursery trade. I would expect many people like myself who want to do extensive research might have similar questions with similar limits to popular rootstock. Its not so much that I want to limit myself, just that I want to buy a product and grow it as is, and I suspect that there are a lot of other people getting started in the hobby who might be more interested in that conversation than in a solution that involves grafting or trying to track down a seller of a particular cultivar already grafted to a particular rootstock.
While there are solutions to my dilemma outside of the guardrails I have placed (i.e specific rootstock available, small size trees desired, and no need for additional grafting beyond what the nursery has provided) I would expect those guardrails to be common for a lot of people starting the hobby who would want detailed answers within those limitations.
Thanks so much for this info. I was completely unaware.
The cultivars I’m looking at are as follows. I tried to align each one to a vigor rating. do these align with that you were thinking?
Enterprise – T3
Red Royal Limbertwig – T3
Old Fashioned Winesap – T2
Arkansas Black – T2
Yates – T3
pest pressure has been insane this year. I tried to leave out water for the animals (replenished from my drip system) but they still went crazy for so many of my crops (veg and fruit). hoping some of my late melons get out unscathed in the next few weeks.
Id like to know more. Where can i source them in europe? Where can i read more about g778?
I obviously don’t know the extent of your neurological condition, but there is a tool which could take someone who only has the ability to sqeeze a pliers stapler, into a proficient grafter. When I say proficient, I mean really good.
When I first started grafting, I read all kinds of stuff that it takes a really sharp knife, and high level of skill, some people never get it, etc.
I guess I was one of those people because I could never make super straight grafting cuts, and never could get the “tongue” in the right place for a whip and tongue graft.
I eventually gave up on whip and tongue and just did whip grafts, which worked pretty good for apples and pears.
Then a member of this forum stumbled across the Zenport grafting tool. It cuts the correct angle graft for you. All you have to do is squeeze the plier like device. You could use two hands to squeeze the device, if need be.
I mention this because so many people through the years thought grafting was too complicated, and they wouldn’t ever really need to do it. But I’ve noticed just about all those folks eventually try grafting, then they are hooked.
It can be actually fun to see your grafts “take”.
If you think about it, it almost has the flavor of a children’s fantasy story - Jack’s plum tree was almost dead, but since it had magic, he took a stick from it, whittled the end and stuck it on another very small tree. And it came to life and grew, becoming his same old friend.
Not only can it be thrilling as you first begin, it also has a lot of practical application. A lot of people on the forum trade scionwood, so they can try all kinds of different varieties they may not be able to easily obtain from nurseries. You are probably aware the forum has a section for scionwood exchanges.
There were some minor problems with the Zenport, but not everyone had problems with it. I was one of the few who had a problem with the one I bought. But I fixed it. They are relatively inexpensive. Amazon currently has it for about 62 bucks with free shipping, but I see it as cheap as $34 on the internet.
There are lots of threads about the Zenport grafting tool on the forum, but here is one where the occasional defect is discussed. You’ll see my fix is rather elaborate, but just ignore that. Instead, pay attention to danchappell’s comments. I thought he had a good fix and much easier, in case someone has problems with a Zenport grafting tool.
In regards to your original question. Although you’ve already heard all the opinions, I prefer the MM111 over the others mentioned. Most of my semi-dwarf apples are on the virus free version of MM111, noted as ELMA111.
They are free standing immediately in my orchard. I don’t recall every staking any of them. We get lots of wind here.
I’ve not had the greatest luck with M7. We had some young trees simply snap off at the graft union. But again really windy conditions here.
There is absolutely no problem keeping MM111 trees at pedestrian height. We have very fertile soil here. MM111 trees are never more vigorous than peach trees, and generally much much less.
I even have several apple trees on standard roots. I keep those pruned so they can be picked standing on the ground, with no picking pole. A couple in my yard, Fuji and Enterprise, each produced about 400 lbs. of apples this year.
Here’s a pic from this season of part of the fruit off the Fuji and a very small part of the fruit off Enterprise from my yard.
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About 80% of my peach grafts now take using a simple splice and a double bladed Italian hand pruner. However, it might be difficult to make the cuts on scion wood with two hands, although, I suppose it could be done.
It turned out I was damaging my wood by tightly wrapping it in stretch wrap during storage- didn’t hurt apple or pear wood but rotted the peach buds. Now I pack the wood loosely in the fridge inside ziplocks placed inside a larger plastic garbage bag with damp cloth. This also saves time over the more careful wrapping.
A grafting tool would help to some degree and get me part of the way there. The main issue I have is the unsupported hand part. I am capable of typing on a computer with my wrists resting on my desk, but as soon as I need to do a task with hands that are unable to rest on something things go haywire. a task as simple as changing a lightbulb is fairly difficult because while my tremor is fairly constant and manageable most of the time, there are times when it becomes wild and uncontrollable at random and with no warning (higher chances of this happening the more extended my unsupported reach is). when changing a lightbulb on the ceiling, getting the threads lined up is hard enough but even after I get the threads started if I grip it too hard and my tremor goes off I have the ability to yank it out and cause damage to the fixture. Almost all of my drink cups have a top because of this issue. I’m burned myself multiple times from having a random uncontrolled tremor while walking with an uncovered hot cup of coffee. you would think having 2 hands involved would make it easier, but it just adds more of a challenge to keeping them both from shaking. the grafting tool could make straight line cuts for me but I would still have to line up and wrap the grafting joint from an unsupported hand, which is easier said then done.
I believe it. I love seeing my fig cuttings take root.
I have plenty of other things to keep me busy tending to all of my other fruit trees/shrubs, so why even try with something I know will be a massive pain for me when I barely have enough time to keep up with everything else.
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