STAGE 3 - INITIAL TEST ORCHARD ESTABLISHMENT...
Initial Test Orchard: Nine months after transplanting the nursery trees to an orchard trial, these trees have been trained to develop wide branch angles, but pruning is kept to a minimum. Trees on precocious rootstock genotypes will begin fruiting in their second leaf.
Precocity evaluation and selection: This third leaf tree is a new Geneva series rootstock with Mutsu (Crispin) as a scion in June, 1999. Mutsu is chosen for initial orchard evaluations because it is typically a very large growing and non-precocious variety. Rootstocks that have not induced fruiting with Mutsu by their third leaf are eliminated from the program. Using Mutsu in the initial orchard evaluations also enables us to get a good estimate of the amount of vigor control conferred by the rootstock.