After reading through a few longer threads I am seeing a frequent occurrence of people talking about their conflicting experiences with the same cultivars of trees. People seem to overlook or fail to mention or learn what rootstock they have and how that can affect the trees health and fruit quality. What are the main factors in your experiences? Is it worth trying to make it common discussion to bring up rootstock influence or is it not actually as significant as I understand it to be?
I get a bit dizzy reading multiple people saying multiple times things like “we are in the same region why does your tree do better with disease or taste better”. I think it is often a rootstock difference, that is the answer. Semi dwarf without adequate water, Seedling resulting in more disease or less fruit. Even frost resistance through leaf out timing can be influenced by rootstock I understand.
If I am not mistaken, there should be a solid thread explaining this or a common response to encourage self education on the topic. I think most people know that Rootstock influences size most, I am understanding that root vigor, and other aspects can even affect fruit taste etc. I think the main variables are how many varieties of rootstocks are used in USA and Europe or the main commercial nursery ones and are there any major contrasts. Or to just frequently respond to people having this conundrum that it could be a rootstock difference, disease, damage, soil, climate, pests etc.
I am barely well enough informed on all the rootstock variations to say this confidently and don’t think everyone will invest that much time themselves either, So I am glad to hear more opinions from people here.
Trees that have a wide range of rootstocks and thus potentially various effects on the grafted plants:
Apples, Pears
Apricots, Plums, Peaches, Cherry
Grapes, Citrus
figs?
Nuts?
If one cares to examine academic publications on the subject, a plethora of articles can be found. Assembling information from these into a reference article and placing it in Reference would aid many people here. For example, when someone asks a rootstock question we could direct them to that thread.
A good place to start looking is in J. American Pomological Society, because in my experience the journal editor is a very good fact checker and has an intense personal interest in fruit trees:
I will caution you avoid publications from the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS), as they are reviewed by the author’s friends and neighbors, plus the chief editor has no academic background in horticultural science or quantitative reasoning for that matter. Horticultural books published by Taylor and Francis are of the same nature.
I hear you. All anectdotal evidence. Opinions by both amateur and expert comingled.
But, real “controlled” tests of lots and lots of varieties on multiple roots…scarce if even in existence.
Do they matter I would say yes. Dave Wilson claims citation can have water issues but claims it can make the fruit taste sweeter. Many dwarf apple rootstocks have trouble getting anchored while the larger ones do not. I think I read Saint Julian rootstock does better with springs that change weather a lot. Issue is which rootstock is right for you as each part of the state can vary a lot. One side of Kansas is rainy while the other side is dry like CO for example. How much space do you have. Some people have acres while others only have a few thousand feet. One person may be busy and want a plant it then get it established and done situation while others may want a smaller tree and be willing to put in more work for less. It is so unique to the person and what they want. In regards to your fruit output a standard size tree will bare more fruit because it is bigger but will take longer to bare fruit.
I can’t speak to the American experience, but in Canada the average fruit tree purchaser has no idea what rootstock their fruit tree comes grafted to. So, it’s kind of hard to compare rootstock qualities when the average person has no idea what exact rootstock has been used. The average nursury in Canada labels their fruit trees with tags that simply state “dwarf” or “semi-dwarf”. I have never seen a tree at a local retail nursury tagged with anything more than a generic (useless), description of the rootstock.
To get trees in Canada on a specific rootstock, you must order from a specialty online retailer that lists exactly what rootstock they use. I’d say only 50% of my trees at best do I actually know what rootstock they were grafted to. The local purchases I have no idea what they came grafted to, and I’d think it would be very difficult to actually track down the source. Many of our local trees are actually sourced from the US as covid depleted local tree inventories, so good luck finding what they were actually grown on.
It’s kind of hard to compare notes on rootstock influences, when the average fruit tree purchaser in Canada has no idea what they’ve actually been sold.
The situation is much the same here in the U.S., although there are infrequent high quality brick-and-mortar nurseries that have properly labeled rootstocks.
Here in the USA it depends highly on the place you buy it. When I got a tree from Costco or bought from Stark Bros they just complain dwarf or semi dwarf or standard. Other nursery claim a rootstock like Raintree, Trees Of Antiquity, Bay Laurel or One Green World. Something that always perplexed me is what qualifies as a dwarf rootstock vs standard vs semi dwarf. For example Raintree states dwarf for things like Gisela 5 and ultra dwarf for Gisela 3. My question is do we consider dwarf rootstock semi dwarf and the super small ones Ultra dwarf like the Gisela 3 because that would mislead a lot of newer people to growing trees.
To compare fruit quality you would need to have the same fruit on different trees with different rootstocks very close to each other. I would think.
Or have someone close enough to you that you can do a fruit tasting and see if they basically taste and look the same. So many variables to do an exact match but I can see where it would be a starting point to tree production and quality. I would like to see that comparison as well. Interesting topic.
You would not even just need to be just as close. It would need to be the same pruning and thinning practices to achieve the same fruit quality. I am not to that point yet but have heard people on here like Olympia spaces their peaches something like 6 or 8 inches per peach.
You make a good point about the minor aspects and maintenance. If that is the case though. If there is a clear difference without being that technical, then there could already be an objective difference to report. Still someone could then go further and try to mimic other aspects like pruning, disease presence, micro climate, wind, vole pressure etc…
I will be trying some of the same pears on 3 types of rootstock (Pyrodwarf, Bartlett seedling, and Quince A) in my orchards. I’ll try to think of other opportunities and record them as time goes on.
Tough to distinguish between an amateur and an expert in this regard. Commercial orchard owners probably do not have the same refined palates as those of us here. A large commercial orchard does not have the same goals as I do. Their goals are production, transportability, disease resistance and storability. Complexity of flavor is probably last. My only goal and many of those here is optimum complexity of flavor.
The experts at the universities also focus their efforts on the larger commercial orchards.
I would say that we are the experts in this case. We probably have the largest sample size,
even more so since the advent of the internet as we can now cloud source this information.
You are talking about people who don’t pay attention to rootstocks and shop at big box stores. They probably don’t care about the rootstock, aren’t serious about growing fruit and probably do not have refined palates yet. People that care like us look for optimum cultivars and optimum rootstocks for their situation.
Last year I was looking at trees at Costco and someone wanted to just buy one honey crisp. I agree most are not looking or know everything we do about cross pollination, rootstocks, varieties etc. I started off as one of those people just going to a big box store and after getting burned a certain amount of times I got more interested in learning and looking things up. Some things people do know work best though. Raintree sells a 4 or 5 in 1 cherry with Bing, Rainier, Montmorency and another variety and those are likely some of the most recommended cherries on here to grow. Those are also some of the most well known cherries though and they are well known for a reason.
This may be true, but unfortunately in Canada since the onset of Covid finding any trees you want has been very difficult. I’ve had to resort to ordering trees all the way from Ontario & Quebec (almost 3000 miles away) to get many varieties I wanted for going on 3 years. With inventories so tight you pretty much need to take whatever you get regardless of rootstock. Unfortunately, even finding scion wood in Canada is a difficult task. You just have way more options Stateside than us here in Canada.
Fortunately, I can always regraft onto rootstock I’d prefer if needed. I have stools going for plum and apple to propagate my own rootstock. I’m also growing some myrobalan & quince from seed to give me other rootstock options.
You’re hilarious, (and too kind). I have a ton saved of my own I intend to multi-graft. I also made several trips off Island to get scion wood from smaller ma & pa outfits that don’t ship. I think I have about as much grafting as I can handle at this point for the spring.
I appreciate the offer, but I’m swamped with orchard work already. I’ve been planting/transplanting fruit trees and harvesting rootstock from suckers almost nonstop since the fall. With the climate in Canada’s banana belt, winter rarely prevents planting/transplanting trees. I’ve been at it all winter digging in shorts (sometimes no shirt), as we’ve had a very mild winter so far. We’ve had a few brief periods of freezing weather, but mostly balmy in Southern BC this winter.
I know exactly what you’re saying, fruit trees from the big box stores in Canada are poorly labelled. Often I’ll ask garden center staff where the trees are from and if they know what they’re grafted on and consistently they’ll have no idea. If you have trees that were from Northern Garden Collection they use Siberian crabapple (Dolgo).
Now that I’m growing fruit trees for mail order from Manitoba, I’m making a point to label important details like the rootstock on the tag. Last year all of my apples were grafted on Siberian crabapple seedlings, and this spring for bench grafting I’m adding in some b118. Another option I’m working on this year will be own root apples, and I would enjoy any comparison of fruit quality and flavour between grafted vs own root.