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Gordon,
I got my interstems from good ole Bear Creek. They appear to have
been (if my memory serves) saddle grafted. My guess is that the rootstock,
interstem and scion were 'assembled' at the same time (at least for some of the
trees) based on the size and healing of the grafts. It is possible that
some scions had been put on interstems made the previous year, but the one that
I studied closely seemed to have been grafted all at once.
My Honeycrisps on 118, were whip and tongued by Frank Folz of Northwind
nursery and were in their 3rd leaf this past summer (first leaf was the grafting
season) and don't appear to have spurs for next year. The interstems
fruited in their fourth leaf and are bearing decently at seven years. The
interstem trees have the interstem portion buried halfway, and, although
staked, appear to be self-supporting and quite strong. I lean my trees
toward the southwest at planting as a bit of protection against sunscald.
With early heavy cropping the interstems need staking at first to support the
crop without excess leaning. As the trunks catch up to the tops, they
support the crops just fine. I have had straight Bud-9
dwarfs snap off under the weight of wind and crop when I delayed good
staking. The Bud-9/scion union on the interstem has not shown weakness
thus far, but perhaps others (Ed Fackler?) can tell us whether the union is
stronger than straight Bud-9's
The only flaw with the interstem trees was that they needed quite a bit of
work to get a dominant leader going. Without persuasion, they wanted to
form a mop rather than a nice central leader.
I fertilize the trees located in particularly thin soil with a bit of
organic vegetable garden fertilizer that is a 6-4-3 (or close to that).
They are mulched in a 3-4 foot circle with shredded oak bark of chips.
The only rootsock for apples that I buy or stool these days is
Bud-9. I graft on these with a whip and toungue. I don't have space
for any more standard or semidwarf apples, but there's still room for dwarves
here and there. I've been grafting mostly apricots and plums for the last
couple years--whip and tounge grafts in the spring. I get a much lower
percentage of takes on these, even with heat during callus formation, but what
the heck, I'm just doing it for fun.
Steve Herje, Lone Rock, WI USDA zone 3
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