To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] flood-tolerant apple rootstock needed?
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:23:06 -0500 (EST)
M13 has been represented to be tolerant to moist soils. I believe that the
Geneva station did some work with it in the past. I don't know whether it
is still available in the U.S.
I imagine that M13 would be the standard to beat.
I have heard that Dutchess of Oldenburg (Charlamovsky?) seedlings tend to
be tolerant of moist soils.
My guess is that there is plenty of suitable apple orchard land
available right now, especially given imports from China etc. I also
wonder if soils subject to flooding would be as productive as better
drained soils even if the trees did survive. Finally, I think most
soils subject to flooding would be in river valleys and would suffer from
poor air drainage and therefor from unseasonable frosts. Some exceptions
might be land beside large bodies of water. I think that a principle
region where such roostocks are valued is the low-lying land in the Elbe
estuary near Hamburg in Germany, somewhat protected from frost by the
estuary and its nearness to the North Sea.
Now, some decades hence when we are on the backside of the oil peak and
transportation is more expensive, local production is likely to be more
important. Eventually due to resource shortages our economy may have to be
reorganize on more of a subsistence basis. I can see late-blooming
cultivars getting more attention. Then flood-tolerant rootstocks
might be of wider interest, but it will take a while. Don't expect to get
rich, If you can afford it and the material can be preserved, it may be
useful work.
Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, tanis cuff wrote:
Please & thanks for your views of the current need or market demand for a
very flood-tolerant apple rootstock.