North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

Eric, remember that Myrobalan has been used as a rootstock for apricot 
with mixed results. Harcot is not compatible with Myrobalan (I can speak 
from personal experience on this), while Harlayne is said to be 
compatible (very limited personal experience consistent with this).

My guess is that an 8 in. interstem of Brompton, St. Julien A or 
Pershore Yellow Egg (in increasing order of coldhardiness) would enable 
you to grow peach on Myrobalan, as they are all suitable rootstocks for 
peach on their own. O of these on maybe P. tomentosa as a nurse root 
might be better. The late Dr. Gus Tehrani of Vineland told me that he 
had found that  Pershore Yellow Egg tended to grow its roots more on one 
side than on the other and he was not happy with its windfirmness.

If I were at Uxbridge I would be very nervous about growing anything on 
Myrobalan. Around 1980 while living on Amherst Island near Kingston (the 
north edge of zone 6a) I found that seedling Myrobalan from Ontario 
(probably Groen's Nursery, now Verbinnen's, I think no longer selling 
fruit tree rootstocks) was not hardy in an open test winter (1980-81) 
even below ground.

Myrobalan is favoured for plums in the Niagara Peninsula because it will 
size a crop in a droughty summer better than other rootstocks.

"Trees and Shrubs of the Dominion Arboretum" reports that they had a 
subspecies of Myrobalan (or Prunus cerasifera at any rate) which was 
hardy at Ottawa. If you like I will check the copy in our local library.

Note that one of our members has been experimenting with Prunus X 
cistena (purple leaf sandcherry) as a rootstock for stone fruit. It is 
quite hardy and P. cerasifera (Myrobalan) is one of its parents.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On 9/8/2011 7:56 AM, mail@siloamorchards.com wrote:
> Anyone have any experience grafting peach onto Myrobalan rootstock?
> Eric at Siloam Orchards , Ontario Canada