Rootstock Issues Fruit Growers Should Be Thinking About

We asked several tree fruit nursery professionals the top rootstock issues on their radar. Here is what they had to say.

Advertisement
  • Todd Cameron, Cameron Nursery: There are so many new rootstocks coming along. When planting orchards, always plant some alternate rootstocks so you can learn. Too many orchards get planted with a new variety, on a new rootstock, new site, new trellis, and new pruning method due to different tree type. It’s too many variables to clearly learn rootstock differences.
  • Brent Burky, Sierra Gold Nurseries: Rootstock selection is just as important as variety selection. If you pick a rootstock that isn’t suited well to your ground or the variety you choose to pair it with, you can really set yourself up for failure. Rootstock selection provides your orchard with the best defense against the potential problems that your trees may ultimately face. If you can’t get both the variety and rootstock that you really need to start your orchard, then you are better off not planting.
  • Sarah Paris, Fowler Nurseries: Growers should be looking to rootstocks to overcome site-specific challenges. Selecting the most appropriate rootstock for your block will not only get your new planting off to a great start, but it will help maximize yields later on. It’s important to understand, though, that rootstocks are not a one-size-fits-all solution. For example, while Krymsk 86 is a great choice for many Sacramento Valley (CA) growers for its tolerance to heavy soils, you’d want to avoid planting that rootstock in a soil with high boron levels. If high boron were the grower’s main concern, you’d be better off planting one of our peach-almond hybrids, like Bright’s Hybrid 5.
  • Tom Burchell, Burchell Nursery: In California the main concern is water, so it depends on growers’ water availability. Is this going to be a drought year? What’s the water allocation going to be? If they know they’re not going to be getting as much water, there are more rootstocks that are drought-tolerant than others. Peach-almond hybrid rootstocks, such as Cornerstone, are good for those situations. They do make a bigger tree with same amount of water. But if you have heavy soils that hold moisture, these rootstocks will not do as well because these peach-almond rootstocks don’t like standing water. Krymsk 86 or Lovell would take heavier soils. Of course, it also obviously depends on what variety you want, but you have to consider location and water availability.

0