Bud 118 rootstock

[Apple Junkie]

The B.118 has been my preferred rootstock and I have no leaning problems to date. However, my B.118 trees are less than 10 years old, they are not in an exposed location, and not on clay.

I recall Appleman mentioning “the B.118 bears 3 to 4 years earlier than the M.111, but the downside is that the B.118 might lean due to crop weight. The M.111 tends to grow straight and well anchored.” Food for thought when making rootstock decisions.

 

[H20fwler]

Our camp has clayish loam soil and we have one tree that leans, but it's not on B-118. It's on Antonovka, but I think It's leaning for the sun - not bad rooting.

In my e-mail conversations with the head of Penn State's fruit tree dept., he told me that for our soil type, MM-111 or emla-111 would be the best choice for solid rooting. This was from among the various clonal rootstocks developed for DR and other characteristics. I asked him about Antonovka and other seedling rootstocks for good anchoring and he told me they would work well too, but wouldn't necessarily offer some of the DR of the clonal varieties. FWIW.

Our soil here is loamy clay to heavy clay and the M111 is about perfect for it with my zone, although I do have a few other rootstocks like B118, P18 and a couple others because it's all I could get at the time. For grafting all I've been using is M111.

 

[Jhoss]

SE Michigan here. Probably around 40 trees on B118. Most need some staked & tied at some point...usually when they load up with fruit. But it seems like the root catches up with the top-growth eventually and then I remove the stake and tie. When you get a good match between scion and rootstock they seemingly grow at the same rate and no leaning problems occur. I've had "gurney" trees start leaning severly (doubt they are on B118)...where if I would not have rescued them they surely would have fallen over...but they are fine now too. Time seems to cure the evils.