Rootstock performance in the 2009 NC-140 peach trial across 11 states

Abstract

From 14 to 18 Prunus rootstocks budded with ‘Redhaven’ peach were planted at 16 locations in North America in 2009. Seven-year performance from 12 remaining locations in 11 states showed that significant differences among rootstocks and sites were found for survival, root suckers, growth, bloom date, fruit maturity date, fruit size, cumulative yield, and yield efficiency. Survival was highest for peach seedling rootstocks at all locations. In contrast, survival of non-peach species and hybrid rootstocks was poor to fair in Missouri (winter cold, wet feet conditions) and Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina due to bacterial canker. Krymsk®1, Krymsk®86, Penta, Controller(TM) 5 and Mirobac (a.k.a. Replantpac or Rootpac®R) were the most susceptible to tree death from Pseudomonas syringae canker in the four southeastern states. Overall, Imperial California had the lowest survival followed by Fortuna and Krymsk®1. Rootstock suckering was excessive on Prunus americana seedlings with lesser suckering noted on, Mirobac, Krymsk®1 and Penta. Largest trees were three Prunus × almond hybrids (Viking, Atlas, Brights Hybrid #5) and Guardian®. Fruit size varied with location and crop load (i.e., some rootstocks had few fruit). Atlas produced the largest fruit and Fortuna the smallest fruit across all sites. Cumulative yields were highest in the peach rootstocks such as Guardian®, Lovell and KV010127 and on Atlas. The lowest yields were from plum hybrids and plum species. Cumulative yield efficiency was higher on the non-peach rootstocks, but these rootstocks also produced trees much smaller than the peach and almond hybrid cultivars. The clonal P. persica rootstocks HBOK 10 (Controller(TM) 8) and HBOK 32 (Controller(TM) 7) appeared to be the most promising of the size-controlling rootstocks tested. These data suggest there was no demonstrated advantage to increase yield ha-1 by using clonal interspecific Prunus hybrids for peach production under current cultural practices. However, on higher pH soils in Colorado and Utah, peach seedlings were not the superior rootstocks for production so continuing evaluation of non-peach rootstocks is warranted.