Stocks for the Stone Fruits

Contribution of plum and cherry rootstocks to virus incidence in New Zealand stone fruit trees

“…For most of the plum rootstocks, testing methods were the same as those used to test plum trees in the plum virus survey . However, for three of the less important ('Black Damas C, 'Common Mussel', and 'Pershore'), which were found to be unsuitable as rootstocks because of propagation (Hatton 1921) and suckering (Cunningham 1940) problems, only an observation for PLPV was made. Testing methods for cherry rootstocks were the same as those used to test sweet cherry trees in the cherry virus survey (Wood & Fry 1972).…”

“…From a commercial fruit tree nursery, and two trees in the MARC collection; (5) 'Common Mussel' was described at EMRS (Hatton 1921) and imported in 1931 (Callaghan 1932;Cunningham 1940) (from the former DSIR Research Orchard at Earnscleugh, Central Otago); (6) 'Common Plum', described at EMRS (Hatton 1921) (believed to have been imported between 1945 and 1950) (MARC collection); (7) 'Marianna', described at EMRS (Hatton 1921) (originated in Texas, United States (Farmer 1955a) and believed to have been imported from East Mailing or from the United States between 1945 and 1950) (MARC collection); (8) 'McVerna', a locally developed rootstock of 'Myrobalan' parentage (MARC collection); (9) 'Myrobalan', this name was given to a cultivar of cherry plum (P. cerasifera) and 'Myrobalan B', one of four (A, B, C, D) selections made at EMRS (Hatton 1921), was imported in 1931 (Callaghan 1932;Cunningham 1940) (MARC collection) (further 'Myrobalan' samples tested were from an old tree of this at MARC, the origin of which is not known, a selection held by the former Horticultural Research Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at Levin, and the 'Myrobalan Late Royal' selection from the MARC collection which was used specifically as a rootstock for apricots); (10) 'Peach/Almond hybrid', a hybrid believed to have been imported from France, and trialled as a rootstock for peaches (Anon. 1964) and as a possible rootstock for apricots and plums (MARC collection); (11) 'Pershore', described at EMRS (Hatton 1921) and imported in 1931 (Callaghan 1932;Cunningham 1940) from the former DSIR Research Orchard at Earnscleugh, Central Otago); and (12) 'St Julien', the rootstock 'St Julien A' was one of four (A, B, C, D) selected at EMRS (Hatton 1921), and is believed to have been imported between 1945 and 1950 (MARC collection) ('St Julien X' is a New Zealand selection made by the late C. Woodhead, DSIR, Auckland (Glucina et al 1992)) (from the former DSIR (now HortResearch) Research Orchard at Havelock North).…”

“…These were: (1) 'Billington Type Jones', a selection of the Japanese type plum cultivar 'Billington' which originated in New Zealand from a possible 'Doris' x 'Myrobalan' cross (Farmer 1955b) and had been trialled as a plum rootstock. The virustested sample was from the Mt Albert Research Centre (MARC) collection; (2) the rootstock 'Black Damas C was one of four (A, B, C, D) selected at East Mailing Research Station (EMRS), England (Hatton 1921), and imported to New Zealand in 1931 (Callaghan 1932;Cunningham 1940) (MARC collection); (3) 'Brompton' was described at EMRS (Hatton 1921) and imported in 1931 (Callaghan 1932;Cunningham 1940) (MARC collection); (4) 'Buck' was imported from Australia in 1888 as 'Morrison's Plum Stock' and later shown to be synonymous with a 1949 import of 'Buck' from the same source (Farmer 1953a). Possibly a cross of P. cerasifera with P. persica (Knowles et al 1994).…”

“…Following investigations at East Mailing Research Station in England to identify rootstocks suitable for plums (Hatton 1921), five plum rootstock selections ('Black Damas C\ 'Brompton', 'Common Mussel', 'Myrobalan B', and 'Pershore') were imported in 1931 for evaluation in New Zealand by the then New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) (Callaghan 1932;Woodhead 1935;Cunningham 1940). These were followed from c. 1945 with imports of 'Common Plum', 'Marianna' (P. cerasifera Ehrh.…”

Influence of Rootstock and Pruning on Productivity, Growth, and Fruit Size of European Plum Cultivars

“…However, performance of some plum cultivars on different seedling rootstocks of 'Myrobalan' is quite variable (2,10,15,29). By contrast, the clonal selection 'Myrobalan B' (12), which is propagated from hardwood cuttings (11,14), produces uniform trees without the inherent variability of seedlings (7). The performance of several other clonal rootstocks for European plum has been reported (13,28,34).…”