Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/717894
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower SEPTEMBER 2016 17 precocious in the second leaf. "It was incomparable to OHxF.87. Grafted with Anjou scions, it yielded 20 to 30 bins per acre in its third and fourth leaf, while OHxF.87 had few flowers and no fruit," he said. For plantings done with no interstems, Einhorn described its dwarfing as extraordinary. "On Anjou, it exhibited the degree of dwarfing within the range of what you'd expect to see on M.9 and M.27 apple rootstock," he said. Einhorn also saw 50 to 60 flower clusters per tree in the second and third leafs. "In the fourth and fifth leaf, we saw up to 200 flower clusters per tree," he said. Quince trials For the past several years, Einhorn also has investi- gated the use of quince as a rootstock in northern cli- mates, looking for many of the same rootstock qualities Neumüller discovered in Amelanchier. Used extensively in Europe and in warmer climates in North America, quince isn't hardy enough to survive locations where temperatures drop below zero and snow cover persists through the winter. Good Fruit Grower has been tracking the progress of Einhorn's quince rootstock trials. (See "Quince evaluated for hardiness," Good Fruit Grower, September 2011). His work began in 2009 when he and Joseph Postman, the curator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Clonal Germplasm Repository Collection in Corvallis, Oregon, evaluated a subset of the quince collection for cold-hardiness, selecting 60 varieties for initial review. From that group, 22 varieties were as hardy or hardier than OHxF varieties. Along the way, they sent a portion of them to Richard Bell at the Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia, to determine fire blight sensitivity. Over the next five years, they winnowed the candidate list down to 14 accessions, always comparing candidate performance to that of OHxF.87. Einhorn will begin testing these trees with and without Comice interstems and putting Bartlett and Bosc buds on top. This trial begins in 2017. In 2018 and 2019, he will expand the trial to four states and one Canadian province: Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Washington and Nova Scotia. He also plans to continue as chair of the pear root- stock committee of USDA's NC-140 project, a multistate project aimed at boosting peach, cherry, pear and apple production through improved rootstocks. Cornell trials Before Terence Robinson, a Cornell University tree fruit physiologist, left for a three-year sabbatical, he set up a combined pear rootstock and training system trial at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. He also hired two postdoctoral research associates to oversee them in his absence. Now into their fourth leaf, the trees are starting to fill out with few differences in growth due to spacing, one of the research associates, Jaume Lordan, reported during the International Fruit Tree Association study tour in New York state. He cautioned that the study was still in its early stage. Robinson planted the fruit in three tree spacings: 3 feet between trees and 12 feet between rows at 1,210 trees per acre, 4.5-by-12 feet at 807 trees per acre and 6-by-12 feet at 605 trees per acre. The three training systems they are evaluating are the tall spindle, V-trellis and biaxis. They are also evaluating three rootstocks within these systems — OHxF.69, 87 and Pyro 2-33 — and chose Bosc scions because of their cold hardiness and propensity for being sold as fresh fruit. At this point, trees on a biaxis are smaller than the others because they spread their tree vigor over two axes. The smallest rootstock is the Pyro 2-33. The greatest yields occurred on OHxF.69, followed by OHxF.87 and Pyro 2-33 "As expected, yield per acre was highest on the 3-foot spacing and lowest on the 6-foot spacing," Lordan said. Highest yields were observed on tall spindle, followed by V-trellis and biaxis. • Growers & Fruit Industry Truck Buyers. . . Partner up with your GMC Business Elite Dealer Lee Peterson Motors Every dollar counts in the ag business, and you need hard working trucks from a reliable dealer you can trust, your GMC Business Elite Dealer. 410 S. First Street • Yakima • 509-575-6372 L P MOTORS .com www Click! Drive! Save! MON-FRI 8 AM - 6 PM SAT 8 AM - 5 PM SUN 11 AM - 4 PM 2016 GMC Sierra 1500 Regular Cab Standard Box Rich Ausink Fleet Manager Jim Peterson General Manager The right truck customized to your specific agricultural businees needs. rich@lpmotors.com jim@lpmotors.com