Apple Rootstock Fact Sheets

The apple rootstock genotypes listed below represent, to the best of our knowledge, all the cultivars available for commercial purchase in the USA. This is a work in progress, and your comments and suggestions are appreciated and will be used in later revisions and refinements of the site. The information presented here was compiled from published descriptions of genotypes, discussions with orchardists, researchers, and nurseries, and unpublished experiments. This information is not necessarily 100% accurate, and in some cases represents well informed guesses. Perfomance of rootstocks will vary widely, the characteristics listed in the fact sheets are generalizations. We do not make specific recommendations of rootstocks, and do not promote the use of one genotype over another.

Some of these rootstock cultivars are sold on a very limited scale by only one vendor, while others are well established industry standards available from all commercial vendors. For cultivars with a limited number of distributors, hyperlinks to commercial sites are included for convenience. For cultivars with wide availability, commercial sources are not listed. The listing of businesses is not an endorsement or recommendation to use specific cummercial sources, but is only included to help users locate difficult to find genotypes. Only rootstock nurseries are included, nurseries that specialize only in finished trees are not listed. For growers interested in a particular rootstock/scion combination, contact your preferred finished tree nursery and ask if they have access the specific combination you seek from the rootstock vendors listed.

If you produce or plan to produce a rootstock genotype for sale that is not listed on this page, please contact me so that we can include them. If you produce a less common rootstock genotype, but are not included as a source, please contact me so that we can include your business on the factsheet. Additional genotypes will be added to the list as they approach commercial availability.

Rootstocks are listed by size class from smallest (1) to largest (10). Size classes are estimated as the relative percent tree size of an own-rooted (full sized) tree, e.g. size class 1 represents a rootstock that produces a tree 10-20% the size that an own-rooted tree would produce under similar conditions. The size class of a rootstock is the primary characteristic of importance, and comparisons of scion productivity on rootstocks of widely differing size classes is not recommended.

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