North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Pete Tallman <pete_tallman@hotmail.com>]

I'm in general agreement with Sherwin Dubren's comments on Mark and Bud-9 
rootstocks. I'm very sorry to hear Mark is unavailable at present. My Mark 
trees were benchgrafted (thanks Greg!) and planted here in nursery beds in 
1994-1996 timeframe, then moved to final spots a year or two later. (It was 
the hot rootstock at the time.) To my eyes, these trees are still doing quite 
well. Trees on Bud-9, most purchased as finished trees, look good too. I have 
some problems with suckering on Mark, and a little on Bud-9. My soil is heavy 
clay with a lot of preparation. Trees are under 100% irrigation and fully 
supported on a trellis. There is fireblight pressure here, but I have not 
noticed a lot of fireblight trouble with the rootstocks themselves. For trees 
heavily involved with fireblight in the scion variety on top, I discard 
entire trees and don't try to save the rootstock. A few trees started 
elsewhere on Ott-3 are also doing noticeably well here, but Ott-3 is 
difficult to impossible to use for benchgrafts because roots on stooled 
rootstock starts are scant; Ott-3 needs to grow for a year before survivors 
are grafted.    
 
Pete Tallman
Longmont, CO   zone 5 or so
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