Budagovsky 9: A Summary of Fifteen 

 Years of Trial 



Wesley R. Autio 



Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



New rootstocks are becoming available every 

 year, some frorn breeding programs in the United 

 States and others from a wide range of different 

 countries. Before commercial plantings of these 

 rootstocks begin, it is necessary to conduct trials to 

 understand all of the potential values of and 

 problems with these rootstocks. Mark is an 

 example of a rootstock that was planted widely 

 before adequate testing had occurred. It was first 

 planted in a large-scale test only six years before 

 widespread commercial planting began. Problems 

 with Mark started to appear in research trials just 

 a few years later, after many trees were already in 

 the ground. Hindsight suggests that waiting a few 

 more years would have been prudent, but the 

 release and promotion of new rootstocks before 

 we truly understand them likely will continue to 

 occur. 



Significant quantities of data have been 

 collected on rootstocks that were released or 

 brought into the U.S. in the 1970's and 1980's. 

 This collection of rootstocks, not those that are 

 just being released, should form the list of 

 alternatives to the well known Mailing and 

 Malling-Merton series. A few of these rootstocks 

 will be discussed in upcoming issues of Fruit 

 Notes. In this issue, Budagovsky 9 is the focus. 



In 1974, Jim Cummins and Dick Norton 

 described Budagovsky 9 (B.9) as "the most 

 promising candidate to replace M.9." B.9 was 

 released from the Michurin College of Horticul- 

 ture in central Russia, having been selected from a 

 cross of M.8 and 'Red Standard.' In many 

 respects, it was considered very similar to M.9; 

 however, it was more cold hardy and more 

 resistant to collar rot (Ferree, D.C. and R.F. 

 Carlson. 1987. Apple rootstocks. In: Rootstocks 

 for Fruit Crops. John Wiley &: Son, New York). 



In Massachusetts, the first planting including 

 B.9 was part of an NC-140-coordinated trial 



established in 1984. This trial included 15 

 rootstocks with Starkspur Supreme Delicious as 

 the scion cultivar. Since then, additional trials 

 including B.9 were established in 1990, 1994, 

 1995, and 1997 with Marshall Mcintosh, Golden 

 Delicious, Jonagold, Empire, Rome, Gala, 

 Cortland, Rogers Mcintosh, Pioneer Mac, Ginger 

 Gold, Fortune, and Honeycrisp as scion cultivars. 

 This article will provide data from all but the most 

 recent plantings, extracting data from each 

 experiment to compare B.9 with M.9 and/or 

 M.26. These data are given in Table 1. 



In general B.9 produced a tree similar in size to 

 M.9, possibly slightly smaller than those on M.9 

 EMLA and slightly larger than those on M.9 (dirty 

 9). The trunk cross-sectional area of trees on B.9 

 was on average 50% (40 and 75% range) of that of 

 trees on M.26. 



Rootstock did not affect yield per tree 

 significantly. Efficiency, however, was dramati- 

 cally affected by rootstock. M.9 and B.9 resulted 

 in similar efficiency, but they were about 50% 

 more efficient than trees on M.26. The practical 

 result of this difference in efficiency is that trees on 

 M.9 or B.9 will yield more per acre than those on 

 M.26. 



B.9, M.9, and M.26 all resulted in good fruit 

 size, and there were no consistent differences 

 among the three rootstocks. Overall, average fruit 

 size in these studies averaged about 200 g {96 

 count), attesting to the fact that these dwarfing 

 rootstocks regularly result in large fruit, even with 

 a lack of irrigation, as was the case in all of the 

 trials. 



Other data not shown here suggested that B.9 

 results in a similar timing of fruit ripening and 

 similar fruit quality to those from trees on M.9. 



In conclusion, 15 years of study show B.9 to be 

 a good apple rootstock. Performance in 

 Massachusetts, however, does not suggest that B.9 



16 



Fruit Notes, Volume 64 (Number 1), Winter, 1999 



