I currently have most semi’s, a few standards, and one half standard I ordered by not paying attention.
I’m wondering aside from space constraints if & why you grow dwarf vs. semi-dwarf or standards? Also how is the productivity, etc.? I “heard” that a lot of dwarf need to be stake for several years to avoid breaks, but I know little about that.
It dawned on me late in the game that if I had done dwarf trees, vs the others, I’d have had a lot more room for a lot more varieties of trees…
Anchoring is an issue. Wind? Heavy rain? Also how much watering you’ll need to do. Ultimate size and the amount of pruning you like to do. I’m in my 60’s now. At some point, I might not want to be up on tall orchard ladders. The size of the apple is important too. On dwarf stock, big apples setting heavily can distort the tree. Mine broke off below the graft once, so I was left with rootstock. If I had crabapples or just small apples, like Gold rush on the tree, it wouldn’t have happened.
Dwarf trees take less space but give you less fruit. Less roots to keep anchored into the ground. Lots of dwarf trees you need to keep staked the entire time. They are not sturdy on their own and can break at the graft area. They do not live as long. They usually can’t take severe weather very well.
Semi dwarf you get more fruit. Easier to manage from the ground. Better root anchoring per say, like an M111. Not as many trees per area. Live longer than dwarf trees. They can take severe weather better than dwarf.
Standards give you more fruit. Harder to keep under control unless you prune them back heavily early on. Better root system. Takes droughts and severe weather better than dwarf and some semi dwarf varieties
Mike C sums it up pretty well.
Unless you have an esthetic reason for wanting large trees the only practical use of standard or semi standard rootstocks these days is survival in harsh climates.
In my 7b zone i can pretty much grow any apple on any rootstock but 35 years ago i decided to do all trellised orchards and i use either emla 26, g935 rootstocks on most varieties except the most vigorous ones which i will use m9 or bud 9 for. Any of the dwarf stocks will require support for the entire life of the tree. Also there seems to be a lot of mysticism about lifespan regarding rootstocks. I currently have 1 row each of emla 27 and p22. These are super dwarfs and each row has 200 trees aprox. They are some the first trees i planted, now 35 years old, most online bs will say that these are good for 25 years.
The benefits of dwarfing stocks are many:
Induces precious bearing, that is early fruiting. Most varieties will fruit in 2-3 years.
Reduced growth is far more manageable.
Varieties on dwarfs tend to ripen earlier in season.
More trees can be planted per area leaving more options for varieties and layout.
Management of a tree that every year wants to be a 7 - 10 ’ tree is tremendously easier than managing a tree that wants to be a 20 - 30 ’ tree each year.
There are drawbacks to using dwarf rootstocks:
As said in earlier posts, there is a limit to how far north you can go with these. The reason for this is how shallow their roots are. The more dwarfing the stock… the shallower the rootsytem.
The more dwarfing stocks need support. Again, this is because of the shallow rootsystem. They have been known to topple over just from fruit load.
Critters love them. If you got rabbits, voles, etc. They seem to prefer dwarfing to larger rootstocks.
Disease, whatever problems you may have in your orchard, it is likely that the more dwarfing rootstock trees will have a harder time.
The shallower rootsystem means you will need to provide irrigation for a period of time if not indefinitely.
I will definitely say, without any hesitation, that despite the cons of the dwarfing rootstocks, after 35 years of a ladderless operation, i wouldn’t come close to changing.
It’s also worth noting that the tried and true pruning methodology our very own @alan has co-opted/developed can keep a semi dwarf rootstock like M111 easily at 12-15’ without spending all your time pruning (probably a lot less time than babying a dwarf, but I haven’t tried both sides by side and it depends on your growing conditions)
Longer: Go to the left of this page and see the “Categories” section. Click “All categories”. Scroll down to “Reference” and look around for Alan’s avatar.
This gets into my dislike of the CYE metric. In most trials Polish P.14 is always near the tops in fruit size and yield per tree. But it’s CYE is always one of the lowest because it is a large busy tree. On the flip side P.59 Dwarf has a stupidly silly high CYE. 5-6-7 or even higher. But it is tiny and you can put in a bunch of them. 3 P59 trees that fit were one Semi-dwarf goes; you end up with more fruit.
For most folks half size or other Semi-dwarves serve well enough at home though. I do think I will avoid M111 or M7 for sales though. To slow to fruit. Even P.18 fruits quicker.
I will try to put medium to high vigor trees on dwarf sizes. And keep a few Super Dwarves around for pot culture customers.
One disadvantage of full sized trees i don’t see anyone mentioning is there is a lot of wasted space in the middle because the rest of the tree shades it. There is little such self-shaded area with dwarf stocks. This is why all new commercial orchards are on dwarf stocks. That’s why the CYE on M9 is so high.
I myself prefer bigger trees these days but only because I need to have them higher than the deer.
Yeah. Full size will be special case here. I will order in some P.18 from Cummins to stool out just to give exhibition trees that live a long time. Or perhaps some Dolgo seedlings. I will be tapped out on what rootstock I will have here. About the only ones I want now are P.59 and G.778 which can not be got in the USA apparently.
Pretty eclectic mix that will cover the sizes:
Malus Brevipes
P.22
Malus Micromalus
P.2
G.214
J-TE-H
G.257
Muz Alma
P.14
G.969
M111
P.18
Jadernicka
The point of proper pruning is to create nearly equal light exposure throughout the tree. This is much easier to do with non-vigorous trees which may take a lot of the fun out of the process for the serous hobbyist.
If you are looking to save time in realizing maximum yields from limited space, dwarf trees are advantageous, but I can get equal productivity from a 100 year old mammoth apple tree on a seedling rootstock, but I get paid well to prune them and enjoy the process.
However, you can also grow spur type trees that are easy to manage in terms of pruning. Ark Black and Goldrush are examples of varieties that are easy to prune and don’t take a lot of time and effort, even on 111. Pears are usually pretty easy to manage as well.
Here in the northeast, the dwarfing stone fruit root stocks seem to often be short lived, except for cherries and the Gesila root stocks.
I grow standard trees because the branches are above the deer (sorta), they handle the cold better (I’ve removed all my semi-dwarf trees from the Z4a orchard -they did not like the cold as much, grew slow and had graft incompatibilities), I grow without irrigation, I harvest by shaking the tree (mostly cider trees), I like the way they look, I don’t have time to deal with fruit for several years (i.e. don’t have the winery permit or building yet), I can get the tractor under the branches, and I don’t need/want high yields. I planted the trees on a hex pattern (rather than a grid) so that each tree is 20 feet from its 6 neighbors. In my area most old apple trees are about 20 feet across, which would fill my canopy.
I have a 1/4 acre vineyard and that is a lot of work (way more than 2 acres of apples), but if I were going for fruit and labor wasn’t an issue I’d trellis dwarf trees in line with grapes (so much easier to care for the fruit- just tie the trees to the trellis).
For a backyard I like semi-dwarf (it’s an actual tree, not a stick/bush, and short enough to spray, and can give more apples that most people want). I get about 10 gallons of cider and a few pies from my remaining 15 year old semi-dwarf in Milwaukee (Z6a). Also- semi-dwarf has a wide range of sizes, its pruning that keeps it where you want it (you can keep a standard tree pruned smaller- but can’t make a dwarf tree larger).
It all comes down to the grower’s goals, and dedication.