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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1552625
This article is part of the Research Topic New Rootstocks for Fruit Crops: Breeding Programs, Current Use, Future Potential, Challenges and Alternative Strategies, Volume II View all 5 articles
Rootstock effect on horticultural performance and fruit quality is not uniform across five commercial apple cultivars in western New York
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Integrative Plant Sciences,New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, United States
- 2 Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Geneva, New York, United States
- 3 Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
The interactive effect of different apple scions with commonly used rootstocks could result in growers selecting an inferior option for tree survival, yield, and fruit quality. The long-term tree performance and fruit quality interactions of 19 rootstocks (including Budagovsky, Geneva, and Malling series) and 5 apple cultivars ('Empire', 'Gala', 'Honeycrisp', 'Mustu', and 'Delicious') were explored in two orchards in Western New York. The first orchard examined the five cultivars on dwarfing rootstocks (B.9, CG.4210, G.11, G.16, G.202, G.41, G.65, G.814, M.26, M.9Pajam2, and M.9T337) and was planted at a spacing of 1.22 m x 3.66 m (2,243 trees ha -1 ). The second orchard examined the same cultivars on semi-dwarfing rootstocks (B.118, G.214, G.30, G.210, G.935, G.222, M.26, and M.7) and was planted at a spacing of 1.83 m x 4.27 m (1,282 trees ha -1 ). Following 17 years, the variables of tree mortality, growth, cumulative yield, and cumulative yield efficiency each resulted in a significant interaction between cultivar and rootstock in both orchards. There were no significant interactions on quality variables measured except fruit color of the 3 bi-colored 'Gala', 'Honeycrisp' and 'Delicious' for both the dwarfing and semi-dwarfing rootstocks. The implications of the interactions observed are that apple producers should pair specific rootstocks with specific cultivars to optimize orchard performance.Planting and maintaining orchards is an inherently long-term investment for growers and multiple decisions such as tree spacing, training system, cultivar, and rootstocks largely determine horticultural success and economic profitability (
Keywords: cultivar-rootstock interaction, orchard production, yield, fruit size, fruit firmness, Fruit red color
Received: 28 Dec 2024; Accepted: 14 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lawrence, Fazio, Gonzalez Nieto and Robinson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Terence Robinson, School of Integrative Plant Sciences,New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, United States
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