Wonderful Photo and beautiful view! I finally succeeded in downloading and rotating! Are those ramial wood chips @ the trunks?
These are the size tree we’d like to end up with. What distance on center do you plant?
No wood chips. The rows are planted 15’ apart and trees within rows are at 12’. I could plant closer, but I have plenty of room and prefer to be able to move around or mow between the trees.
We don’t have much room. Probably only 2 of our 5 3/4 acres will be orchard. We planted 16’ on center - but the current rootstock that we started with is M111. We’re looking for a different rootstock to expand the orchard. Your two recommendations sound very promising.
You can plant a whole bunch of dwarf apples in 2 acres. 
Right. 
I have no experience with M111, except for a tree that has a G.11 interstem. It is definitely dwarfed relative to what M111 should be. I live on a 150x80’ suburban lot, so no room for many M111 trees… My point of view is also framed by the understanding that this might not be my forever home, so I didn’t want to do a lot of raised bed plantings that I would just have to tear out prior to selling the house. (Not sure if my fruit trees would be a ding against us in selling the house.)
There are people with lots more experience here than I. I just have the particular experience of needing to grow on wet soil due to growing in my yard.
I like G.935, but have had the discussion that Geneva roots might be prone to viruses transmitted from infected scions. I have a hypothesis that the problematic G rootstocks will trace back to having an Ottawa 3 parent, which is also virus susceptible.
I believe if you are doing your own grafting it might be a good idea to steer towards G.11, G.41, and G.202, which don’t have that virus-susceptible parent. If you are buying from a nursery, and not adding extra scions to make multi-graft trees, then there is probably less to worry about from most of the Geneva stocks.
Geneva roots “should” be relative resistant to root rots due to wet soils. The selection procedure specifically was designed to kill seedlings flooded and inoculated with Phytophthora.
So, this is sort of a lot of blabbing, hopefully it is useful info, even if most of it is from reading.
One other observation about growing in wet spots - they tend to be low on the landscape and collect cold air during spring frost events. The lower landscape position can turn a light frost in the uplands to a hard freeze in the low spots. It looks to be a consistent problem for me.
I’d recommend putting your late®-blooming varieties in the lower spots.
Glad to hear your G11 and G16 fruit well, and don’t get real big. I have a Novaspy, and two Grimes Golden on G16 that were planted last year. Both of GG have grown nicely, about 6ft tall now, with good scaffolds. The NS has put on decent growth, but seems to be having trouble sending out scaffolds.
These trees have seen a lot water over the last couple years, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. They’ve never been standing in water, but it has gotten quite wet in that area.
I just planted an Alkmene on G11 a couple months ago, it’s been in some really damp soil but seems to be leafing out nicely.
I have four trees (Cortland, Macoun, Pristine and King David) on M7 and they have been in some quite wet soil also, and are doing just fine. A couple of them are kind of spindly, so I might have to stake them if they don’t start thickening their trunks.
I have a Winesap that I bought from Lowe’s last year that I think is on M7, and has went from a 6ft tree to almost 8ft. But after a flash flood here a few weeks ago the root system got a bit unstable and the tree started leaning a bit. I had to tie it to its cage to keep it upright. If that cage wouldn’t have been there, it may have tumped over. I might have to stake it as well, until it can get some deeper roots.
M7 seem to put out some root suckers more than other rootstocks, but that’s not a big deal to me.
1 Like
I would have recommended B.118, except that in heavy or wet soils, it can contract Phytophora root rot. This is mostly a problem in the Deep South, but it CAN happen further north.
Yes, and I’m trying to decide what rootstock to focus on to finish our orchard off. We currently have 65 trees planted over 3 years and plan to have 100 in total. That’s the plan anyway.
I have a small area that tends to be a wet area at times. Using M111 and mounding seems to have taken care of any associated issues. I think most rootstocks would actually do ok as long as mounds are used to plant on.
I realized that’s what I did wrong. I just walked the property again today. Right now it’s actually the pears, 2 peach and 2 plum trees that are sitting in some standing water. I need to dig up and replant those in mounds. Hope I don’t kill them as they’re already leafing out.
1 Like
Putting these on mounds should help but transplanting after they leaf out is risky unless they can be carefully lifted out without disturbing the roots.
Is it better to wait till fall?
1 Like
When were they planted and does the area dry quickly?
Two of the pears and the plums were planted @ 3-4 weeks ago and one large espaliered pear was planted 5 days ago. The plums are leafing out. On the pears I can just barely see dark red leaf buds starting to form.
1 Like
I have plums on myrobalan rootstock in the same area. Again on a small mound. Wet feet has not been bothering them over past 4 years (again still early possibly). Superior, kahinta, Toka.
No longer than they have been planted you could probably replant successfully but I can’t be sure. If the area drys out after a couple of days they might be okay to wait until the dormant period. Without seeing your situation I would go with replanting on the mounds when the soil is dry enough to work but there is still some risk.
Sounds logical
1 Like
Yes, I should have done this to begin with, but it’s heartening to know that you have some that are growing in such a situation…