A friend of mine convinced me to just replant to replace the Wickson on G11/M111 I killed this summer by painting raw neem on the trunk (as discussed in this thread). While the M111 bottom root of this tree is still living and sent up some shoots, they wouldn’t be big enough to graft to for another year. And they didn’t grow all that much after the first couple weeks, so possibly the M111 roots were weakened by having the top die off in August.
I could try to cleft or bark graft into the M111 in spring, but I’ve never done that before and I do want to get this tree going. The prospect of fooling around with it for another couple years or having my grafts fail or struggle is discouraging. These roots are less than 2 years old, and they were doing fine until August, but they don’t look massively vigorous since then.
So I ordered a new tree from Cummins on G.202, 9/16" caliper. Then reading the currently active thread about topworking (or replacing) big old trees made me think about replant disease.
In my situation, it seems like replant wouldn’t normally be a big deal, with grubbing out a young tree. But it will have spent 8 months with the top dead (though I cut it off), roots living but maybe weakened. G.202 is unfortunately one of the Geneva rootstocks which is not resistant to replant syndrome. So here are my options:
- dig out old tree next spring, plant new one on G.202 - i.e. don’t worry about replant
- dig out old tree now, plant new on on G.202 in spring - maybe giving the soil the winter without a tree it would help?
- figure out a different tree on replant resistant rootstock
- plant a pear (but I’d rather keep an apple here)
I’m working with a highly constrained space, so it pretty much has to go in the same place. Any opinions?
Thanks for the help!
