Rootstock Propagation and the Future of Fedco

Nearly every fruit tree listed in our catalog began as a scion (or bud) and a small rootstock. Each year our growers graft tens of thousands of fruit tree varieties onto various rootstocks. We get a lot of questions from customers about rootstock: Which will make fruit the soonest? How big will the semi-dwarf trees be? Which stock will do best in clay soil? But what we don’t talk much about is where all of these rootstocks come from. How are they grown?

Most of the rootstock we offer is produced commercially on a gigantic scale, clonally propagated and typically grown in large Pacific Northwest nurseries where fertile soil and milder winters create ideal growing conditions. Research institutions developed these varieties over many years to achieve the desirable characteristics, like cold hardiness, disease resistance and mature tree size.

Rootstocks can also be grown from seeds of hardy and resilient varieties whose offspring are true to type. Antonovka, which is the mainstay of Fedco’s line of standard-sized apple trees, is grown from seed that has historically been sourced from Russia and Ukraine, where Antonovka is a popular variety for cooking, fresh eating and processing. Due to the ongoing war and volatile political climate in Ukraine, this source of seed has become increasingly unreliable and difficult to get. This seed insecurity, along with supply-chain issues during the pandemic, has inspired us to think creatively about ways to produce our own rootstock locally.

In recent years we have been experimenting with growing Borowinka rootstocks from locally collected seed as a possible alternative to Antonovka. Borowinka refers to any tree grown from the seeds of Duchess apples, which are unusual in that they grow out true to type. (The seeds of most apples will grow into trees with fruit that is different from the parents.) Duchess trees are abundant in Maine and have proven to be some of the toughest and hardiest around. We’ve also been trying our hand at a propagation method called ‘stool bedding’ with some of our favorite clonal stocks like M111 and Bud 118. We like the idea of propagating long-living apple trees from plant materials sourced solely from our own orchards.

We’re experimenting with growing rootstocks of other species, too: Lovell seedlings for peaches, Prunus americana for plums, and Pyrus communis for pears, just to name a few. We have been planting out mother trees of hardy rootstock varieties like Mazzard cherry and Siberian C peach for more sources of rootstock seed. In this catalog, we’re offering seedling trees of Borowinka apple and Prunus americana, with more available on our website—perhaps you’ll want to establish your own seed source for future rootstocks. The fruit from these trees is also good to eat.

Our homegrown rootstock can be dug from the nursery after one or two seasons and bench grafted just as we’ve always done with commercially sourced stocks. We can also direct seed certain vigorous rootstock species into the nursery in the spring, then bud graft in place later that same summer, resulting in full-sized grafted trees in just two seasons. This year we are excited to offer some of our very first trees grafted onto our locally grown rootstocks.