What's the coldest zone people are using B.118?

General Fruit Growing
#1

This year I went with Budagovsky 118 rootstock which should be hardy for my zone four, good for my poor soils, and vigorous enough to take advantage of our very short season. All those factors tend to dwarf our trees. The usual root stock of choice here is baccata but that one does have compatibility issues with some apples. For instance last year none of my prairie magic took on that.

Is anybody here using B.118 in zone 4 and below? It is very hard to find much actual data beyond “extremely cold hardy” and some second hand references from vendors claiming zone 4 and even 3.

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#2

Currently labeled 4a here, used to be 3b. Still is 3b since we routinely go lower than -30.

I’ve got a number of trees on b118 that have seen plenty of temps from -25 to -38. The -38 was recorded at my house which sits 30’ higher than at least some of my orchard trees, so I assume it was -40 or lower for some of my b118s.

I can say the same thing for M111 however…and my trees on M111 aren’t as prone to “leaning” as are those on b118. This is a very windy area however.

I think the key to hardiness for most any rootstock is to be fully dormant before it hits -20 or lower.

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#3

just grafted 4 different apples onto 10 of these rootstocks. liberty, burgundy. Clark’s crab and state fair . going in the ground tues. ill post how they do.

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#4

I have a number of B118 trees near St. Paul in 4a. They seem fine.

#5

There’s a company here in Canada called Hardy Fruit Trees that markets trees for Zone 1 and 2 and I believe they use mostly B118. I’d bet money it’s extremely cold tolerant and certainly good further than Zone 3.

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#6

I’m a Z4a, our lowest temp this winter was -26.7F. Here’s what I have on B.118:
Orchard Inventory Fall 2022
Row 1
11. 39th Parallel B.118 (2)
13. Airlies Redflesh B.118 (3)
16. Almata B.118 (3)
19. Black Oxford B.118 (3)
22. Blue Pearmain B.118 (4)
26. Brown’s Apple B.118 (4)
30. Centennial Crab B.118 (1)
31. Chestnut Crab / MN 240 B.118 (2)
33. Cortland B.118 (5)
38. Cox Orange Pippin B.118 (3)
41. Delcon B.118 (2)
43. Dolgo Crab B.118 (2)

Row 2

  1. Dudley aka Northstar B.118 (3)
  2. Early Joe B.118 (3)
  3. Ellis Bitter B.118 (3)
  4. Enterprise B.118 (2)
  5. Foxwhelp (Fauxwhelp) B.118 (4)
  6. Golden Russet B.118 (4)
  7. Haralson / MN 90 B.118 (3)
  8. Harrison B.118 (5)
  9. Honeycrisp B.118 (3)
  10. Hyslop Crab B.118 (3)
  11. McIntosh B.118 (2)
  12. Niedzwetzkyana B.118 (2)
  13. Red Astrachan B.118 (5)

Row 3

  1. Red Vein Crab B.118 (3)
  2. Reinette des Carmes B.118 (4)
  3. Smokehouse B.118 (3)
  4. Wagener B.118 (3)
  5. Red Westfield Seek No Further B.118 (4)
  6. Whitney Crab B.118 (4)
  7. Wickson Crab B.118 (3)
  8. Winekist B.118 (3)
  9. Winter Banana B.118 (3)
  10. Yellow Bellflower B.118 (3)

For me, B.118 has been low vigor, but hardy. I’m happy with it, but I’m not seeing vigorous growth for the most part.

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#7

I emailed them to check, they say they are using bacatta and dolgo which makes sense; few things are known to survive zone 2 and those two are certainly known contenders. Rescue would be another candidate.

Bacatta is probably one of the most used rootstocks here in Alaska but it has proven incompatible with several varieties. Apparently it has to do with apples that has no crab parentage but there could be more going on than that. B.118 just seems like a good candidate for our poor soils so I have my hopes up.

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#8

Ahhh, Dolgo and Bacatta make a lot of sense, I’m not sure why I thought they used B118, my apologies. Thanks for clarifying for us all.

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#9

No worries! It takes a village to raise a tree :slight_smile:

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