April 2021 - 10

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS
ROOTSTOCKS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
a seedling or something like that, you
know, the same rootstock their greatgrandfather
grew stuff on, " Heuser Gale
said. " IFTA has always been a hotbed of
research about dwarfing rootstocks and
growing systems to grow them with. I
would definitely say IFTA is the catalyst
that brought about a lot of that change. "
The industry has never stopped
changing.
" We did the gamut of those Malling
rootstocks, " she said. " One-eleven
(m.111) was a huge, huge thing for a
long time because it was very similar
to seedling, which is what most apples
were on at that time. It was a big, big
rootstock, took several years to come
into bearing. And then they thought,
'Oh, we'll go down to seven (m.7),
because it was faster to come into
bearing,' so we went through a 15-year
period where seven was the be-all and
end-all. They planted millions of Red
Delicious on seven out in Washington.
And some of the forward-thinking
guys went to 26 (m.26), thinking it
was perfect because it was small, but
it was precocious. ... then they finally
got down to Malling 9. They decided it
needed support. The closer you cut it the
more productive it would be per acre.
" So, that's basically how we evolved
into the systems that we're using
now. Now we've got all these Geneva
rootstocks in, which, they're wonderful
stuff, but they're all about that m.9 size. "
Today, Heuser Gale is president of
International Plant Management, a
corporation she ran with her dad that
provides growers with new fruit tree
selections.
" The interesting thing about this
business is, very few growers are ever
finished with what they're doing, "
Heuser Gale said. " Our growers are
always innovative. Always. "
Finding the right rootstock
Lowell Cordas has had a lifelong
fascination with fruit trees, but
throughout his life in Washington and
California, selecting the right rootstock
has always been a big challenge for
the growers he knew. He earned a
degree in botany from the University of
Washington in the 1970s and eventually
served as director of the Saratoga
Horticulture Research Foundation in
California for seven years. He learned
to prune trees from the University of
California's Bill Coates and remembers
some of the challenges to the industry
during the late 1980s and early 90s.
" Back then, (the goal) was
productivity and picking at height, "
he said. " The cost of moving ladders
around was getting to people. " Increased
worker safety regulations were another
challenge.
Later in his career, he returned
to Washington where he remained
interested in fruit trees as a part of
amateur grower groups such as the
Western Cascade Fruit Society. But
rootstocks were still a baffling choice for
many growers.
" What fascinated me was the lack
of knowledge about rootstocks, in the
groups, " he said. " Everybody wanted
to be organic and environmentally
conscious, very interested in preserving
antique varieties. But (they had) very
little knowledge of fruit nutritional needs
based on where the rootstock originated
and what they were trying to coax out
of it in Washington state soils. We've got
a lot of soils up here and a lot of them
aren't actually fertile. You're growing on
gravelly soil a lot of the time. "
To help educate growers, he compiled,
edited and self-published a 400-page
reference book, " Manual of Worldwide
Temperate Zone Fruit and Nut Tree
Rootstocks, " meant to help growers pick
rootstocks that work well, and he's now
looking for help to continue the work
cataloging different rootstocks.
" It went from the M-series (Malling
rootstocks) to the B-series (Budagovsky
rootstocks), and it just exploded
after that, " he said. " Now they're all
excited about Geneva rootstocks. The
problem is, as you go from east to west,
the research indicates there's a lot of
behavioral changes in the tree based on
different environmental factors. "
He hopes the development of new
varieties continues at land-grant
universities, knowledge is retained and
growers educate themselves about the
best possible rootstocks.
" We don't have many breeders left at the
university levels, " he said. " What happens
when that knowledge retires? " FGN
10 | FruitGrowersNews.com
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April 2021

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