I am planning a Stone Fruit orchard of Nectarines, Apricots and Plums in a 4100 foot elevation area in Southern California that is windy.
Krymsk 86 was recommended as it is a good anchoring rootstock.
I am just debating whether to plant the rootstock 1st and next year trunk graft…or to graft them now with the rootstock?
What are your folks recommendation…just plant a few hundred rootstocks to ensure they are anchored in the ground for about a year…and then trunk graft them? Or custom order the orchard to have the rootstock grafted with the varieties I want….for delivery of them combined for planting next year?
Rootstocks are pruned, bundled, chopped to length, etc. That stock regrows itself or will grow the scion grafted to it. Either way it’s getting reestablished. I know Eve’s cider grafts with the in-field method, but it’s rarer. Most places bench graft then plant.
Note that G935 is susceptible to viruses and the recommendation is to only use certified “clean” scions. I didn’t know that the first few years of bench grafting. No problems to date, but enough to switch me to G890 going forward.
Because I’ve never met an apple tree I didn’t want to add a stick to.
Every Geneva rootstock I’ve ever gotten from any nursery has been starved for roots. But every single one grows out fine and fills my 1 gal air pots up with roots by the end of the season.
So I picked up 50 g890 and 25 ohxf87 rootstocks to save the girdled cultivars from this past winter.
Of course I forgot I ordered a scion of green gage and never ordered a plum rootstock so I either need to fork up shipping for a small order or graft it to my large american plum for now.
I got 50 G214 from Copenhagen and many of them have fewer roots than I would like. Same with last year’s G214 that I got from 2 different nurseries. So the baby trees will get a slower start than I would like. There was anthracnose on rootstock from all 3 places. I’ve been able to graft below the wound on all but two (1 last year and 1 this year) so far. You can see the wound has spread into the little “trunk.”
I guess I’m not sure how little roots is too little. This is a G.210 I got. This seems like very little to me the other rootstocks I got (B.9 and EMLA 111) had a lot more.
And though these are doing well now, I have no idea how they’ll fare when they actually need those roots!
you know the cold tolerance of the Provence Quince and Provence Quince BA29C stocks by chance? ive heard that quince doesnt appreciate the cold like 5a/b provides. mine are going to be in pots too
I skipped the stool bed step and placed the near rootless G41s in the ground. Grafted the scions w/modified cleft. I’ve placed semi opaque old ice cream buckets on them. 10 days out, I’m seeing green on the Stayman, and serious bud swelling on the VA Sweet. The Summer banana is dragging a bit. I’m expecting they will all be ok. I plan to water every other day during dry conditions. I’m looking forward to the day I won’t have to spend 5 hours pruning M111 trees or climbing ladders to spray them.
Summer Banana apple trees are especially difficult to manage if the tree is large. They are extremely twiggy, produce copious amounts of flowers, require fruit thinning, and produce too many undersize fruit. A G41 supposedly produces larger apples.
I have a few that have made it through two winters in the ground, but even though we are listed at 5b, we haven’t had cold temps. AROMATNAYA quince is listed at zone 4 - might be worth using it as a dwarfing rootstock…
Put mycorrhizal inoculant to those roots at planting. That will boost their reach quickly. Unless your soil is way better than mine and you have evidence of abundant fungi present.
While I’m writing: more dwarfing stocks are needed this year than I had at first estimated, so ordered ten Gen210 to fill the gap. This will be my first experience with this stock, so am curious to see how it performs compared to Gen30.
Rootstock nurseries say before planting to trim roots to within 1/2” to 3/4" of the shank to promote growth. A fluffy mass of roots looks impressive, but it doesn’t seem like the equation "more roots = more better” maths out. The G969 from Treco look great, but after callousing and before planting I’ll trim all these back. A bunch of folded over and compacted roots in the hole probably isn’t good.
