North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sam Franc <franc@oregonfast.net>]

Lucky Pittman wrote:

> Ginda,
> The bulk of my apples, or at least those I planted the first two or 
> three years, as I was getting the orchard established, are on a combo 
> M111/M9 rootstock.  Most are in 

The bulk of my original orchard was also on M111/M9.
In my climate on the Oregon coast I have decided it is too dwarfing to 
get much production.
So all my latest plantings have been on M111 only.
Suckering seems to be very selective.
A few of the trees sucker heavily.
A lot of them have never suckered.
It may be caused by the variety on top.
I don't know why really.
The M111/M9 trees are not over 8 feet now.
The M111 trees while not as old are not much taller, maybe up to 10 feet.
I believe in summer pruning and do it regularly on all the trees.
I grow organically and spray very little except for a winter oil and copper.
I have a young Honey Crisp graft that seems to be doing better than the 
ones mentioned in recent posts. It is heavily cropped this year but not 
ripe yet.
Here garvenstein was just harvested and summer red is just about ready 
to give you an idea of the growth pattern here.
Sam