theres a guy a few towns over that sells his grafted trees on facebook market place. last i looked he was selling 3 yrs old grafted seedlings of apple, pears and plums for $20 plus shipping. i contacted him to find out what rootstocks he was growing them on. he was using standard but he said he was looking into growing naturally dwarfing rootstocks to graft to as well. he had a pretty good selection of most of the more popular cultivars of each and he runs out of stock often. he also started up just after covid.
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Thanks for sharing this. It encourages me to keep moving forward!
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This is a guy south of me 45ish minutes. I think he sells a good number of trees
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Great share! Thank you
Seedling here is mostly sold as A}a non-marketed. unknown rootstock for the public who does not know better, usually very cheap trees; or B} Folks who specifically want huge trees.
I mean we can put a Customer on Centurion or soon Makino Crab if they want it.
The Dolgo seedling rootstock up here is known for cold hardiness and disease resistance. It also produces fairly true from seed as compared to other seedlings. I think for many years it was the desired rootstock up here, but I could be mistaken.
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I believe Bailey’s Nursery (large commercial operation in MN) uses Dolgo for their standard trees. I think Columbia crab was their go to years ago, but it’s very hard to source now (so I hear).
If you grow your own grafted Dolgo tree(s) you’ll have your own source for seed. My grafted Dolgo does have a strong biennial tendency however. I have 2 Dolgo seedlings as well. One is biennial, the other is not. Both produce fruit similar in appearance to Dolgo, but one tree makes “mini” Dolgo and the other is close in size to my grafted Dolgo. One seedling tree grows tall and narrow, the other wants to go out, not up.
Good luck with your plans
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It was and is one of the many “cold hardy” selections of antiquity. There are a lot of them if you dig around. Bittenfelder, an array of Antonovka’s, Ulm Police are just a few of the seedlings grown in the frozen Baltics. Borowinka. Etc.
Bud 118 and P.18 are the very cold hardy, best resistance of large size today.
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You might try Duchess of Oldenburg, both as an early season apple and root stock. It is a natural semi-dwarf and very hardy (-44? even colder?) I had read up on it years ago and may begin stooling it myself to see how it performs in the arid PNW. (Yep, there’s desert in the middle of Washington.) Try a pile of cultivars that look useful to you besides what has been bred by the U. of Minn. You may find something to excite people to buy and grow.
Stooling is a simple procedure and offers consistent results, although you will find the odd incompatability.
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I have not purchased from them but they were recommended to me by a nurseryman. They have dolgo crabs if you are up for a large bundle
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The prices at this nursery are incredibly inexpensive. Thanks for sharing!
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You both refer to the same thing. And it’s a good idea, I plan to do some experimenting with it myself. John Bunker writes that it was among the first apples/rootstocks to be grown successfully north of Bangor Maine and a good portion of the feral apples growing there to this day are duchess offspring.
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I think Fedco is now selling Borowinka seedlings?
Yes, I believe I may have seen a listing for it. I’ve also heard they are experimenting with offering it as a rootstock option for their grafted trees in place of antanovka. I personally like the idea of being able to source and grow reliable rootstocks locally.
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I’ve read that Tolman Sweet seedlings were used as winter hardy, long lived, vigorous rootstocks in the past. My T.S. tree looks to be loaded this year, I should save seeds and grow some out
A number of cider apples are used as semidwarfing rootstock. Like Doucin. Paradise is about a 70% size tree.
Strong root by cutting types are used as rootstock. Benoni, Burr Knot, River’s Nonsuch.
Interesting you reference Benoni; hoping to get that going here this season.
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[quote=“Everett, post:34, topic:80503, full:true”]
I personally like the idea of being able to source and grow reliable rootstocks locally.
[/quote]<
I couldn’t agree more!
EDIT: I guess mobile doesn’t like the quote function of a reply
I dont plan on buying anymore rootstock other than to grow out for a year or two and stool bed with it.
The quality of bought rootstock vary too much in my opinion. 4 months ago I bought 10-Bud 9 to grow out for interstems, 3 of them only had 1 little root that was smaller that a toothpick. They are alive and growing, but not enough root there that I would take a chance grafting to it, just not enough stored energy there to callus a scion and push new growth out of it.
When I eventually figure out what varieties of apples that I want in my yard, everything will be on Bud-118 with a Bud-9 interstem. All of which I will grow out myself.
I had 2 B.118 left from the prior year and one tapped out already. The last looks very good. All the grafts on B.118 died that year.