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Cider Digest #0763
Subject: Cider Digest #763, 10 September 1998
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #763 10 September 1998
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
M9 Rootstock (Richard Anderson)
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Subject: M9 Rootstock
From: Richard Anderson <baylonanderson@csi.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 21:47:33 -0700
I think it is safe to say " it depends". M9 is a common, successful
rootstock for many commercial dessert apple orchards in Western Europe
and the US. It is used because of its precocity and yields per
hector/acre. The intent is to grow fruit not wood. As a rootstock, it
is brittle, requiring support; it not resistant to Fireblight, nor
considered good in clay soils. One solution is to graft a dwarfing
interstem like M9 on top of a more vigorous rootstock, then graft the
desired variety to the M9 interstem.
We are planting several acres on M9 and M26 for some of the weaker
varieties and are looking for yields and easy management. We trellis and
train for a vertical axis with three to four good scaffold branches on
the horizontal and weaker branching up the single leader. This allows
good light penetration and easy access for spraying and summer pruning.
We are removing all fruit the first year, and thinning heavily the
second year, perhaps again the third.
If I were to grow just a few trees, I would plant on self supporting
root stock, like M111 or M107 and not fuss to much with them.
Some good books on this subject are:
Barritt, Bruce H., Intensive Orchard Management
Good Fruit Grower, Yakima Washington, 1992
Williams, R.R,Editor, Cider and Juice Apples: Growing and Processing
The Hereford Cider Museum, Pomona Place, Hereford UK, 1989?
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End of Cider Digest #763
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