Hi,
I am new here and needed some help from experienced people here on this forum.
I bought a multi-graft plum tree 2 years ago before I know anything. It had Beauty, Santa Rosa, Italian, Burbank and Shiro. But now Beauty completely took it over. I will skip all the details for now and tell the story in another post later on.
I really like the bark of the rootstock (pic #1). Now it sends suckers from the ground (pic #2). At least it looks like the suckers from this rootstock. The sucker has the white dot on the skin as well.
I am thinking to dig out the suckers and build one or two perfect multi-graft plum trees. With all the knowledge gathered, I think it’s doable even though difficult. It is worth a try.
My question:
What rootstock is this? Because the Home depot tag did not say anything about rootstock.
I am guessing it is Citation, because my soil heavy heavy clay, almost always wet, but the rootstock does so well here, strong and vigorous. The top Beauty had at least 200 plums in 2019.
I tried to find pictures about plum rootstocks online, but they are all showing just the tiny young rootstocks, which don’t help. I am hoping someone here with plums can tell me what rootstock this is.
Did the Home Depot tag say dwarf, semi-dwarf or standard sized?
If it’s dwarf or semi-dwarf, it may be Citation. If standard, it could be Myrobalan or Marianna. It may even be a wild (American) plum rootstock.
I don’t know what it could be just by looking at it. I have a couple pluots on Myro and one on Citation, but don’t recall what they look like. They all seem to be pretty vigorous.
Maybe it’s your camera angle, but I don’t see the graft union. I do know wild plum does sucker a lot, but not sure about the three named ones I mentioned. So perhaps yours is just a wild plum rootstock?
Edit: I did some research just now, and it appears Citation and Myro doesn’t really sucker. Marianna 26-24 does sucker a lot.
Thank you subdood!
The tag says Combination Plum, 4-way combo’. Not really helpful.
On the back it says size: 12-15 tall x 10-12 w. spacing 10-12 ft. hardiness -20F. It’s a semi-dwarf. That’s why I guessed it was a Citation. I was hoping to check with someone with Citation to confirm.
Post a few more photos for you.
The red tag says Shiro, but the picture really shows the graft union for Beauty (blue/grey tag). As you can see Beauty was dominant two years ago when I bought it.
Ok, thanks for the pics. The graft union I’m talking about is the one between the rootstock and the main trunk. Do you recall seeing one?
I found this web page of various stone fruit rootstocks. It appears to say the only RS that suckers a lot is Marianna. Citation does sucker some, and your tag says it is hardy to -20 and the size and spacing distances are smaller, and you said it has done well in wet heavy soil, so it could be.
What I’m curious about is how to harvest these suckers. If they’re coming off the rootstock, they prob won’t have any roots to speak of. So how can they be used once that they’re cut off? Maybe dipping the cut end in some kind of rooting compound and then placing them in a pot with soil to see if they’ll grow roots?
I ask this partly because I have some apple trees that are on M7 rootstock, and a
couple of them have grown 2-3 ft high suckers, and I’d like to use them as rootstocks for new bench grafts.
There was no graft union at the ground level. The rootstock was grown as a whip. Then 5 scions were grafted at 2ft. I think that’s why the trunk was very healthy and strong. That’s why I want to identify this rootstock. If it’s a good rootstock, I am planning to use it for my project here:
No point in making my own thread. I have this 4 way multi graph plum on unknown root stock too. There was a Italian Euro plum that died after a couple years. The rootstock looks very similar to yours.
I do have to question if you have a sucker however. It looks very much like mulberry to me. My tree has a above ground root thats throwing up a sucker for comparison.
Hi, lordkiwi,
I am 100% sure that we have the exact same rootstock.
As for if the sucker looks like mulberry. I remember that I examined the leaves on the suckers last Fall. They were very similar to the plum leaves. That’s why I was sure they were suckers, not something else. I don’t think the leaves are like mulberry.
I dug them up last months. Hoping to use them. But they did not have much roots, so I just discarded them.
It looks like the un-named rootstock my Green Gages are grafted to. It kinda looks like the Marianna 26-24 my Opal plum is grafted to, but there is not much wood between the roots and the graft. My money is on one of the Mariannas.
