90 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 378 



DEPARTMENT OF POMOLOGY 



R. A. Van Meter in Charge 



The past season was a reasonably favorable one for fruit crops. There 

 was abundant rainfall in the early part of the season but the late summer 

 and early fall were dry with much abnormally cool weather. The apple 

 crop was good considering the heavy crop of 1939. There was some 

 injury to the crop from freezing weather during the latter half of October. 

 Peach buds survived the winter in adequate numbers and there was little 

 cold injury to raspberry canes. Bluelierry plants suffered more than usual. 



The Influence of Various Clonal Rootstocks on Apple Varieties. (J. 



K. Shaw and L. Southwick.) Some of the stocks in the stool bed are 

 dying, but Mailing 11, HI, IV, XII, A, and C are still in fair to good 

 condition. A new stock bed was set containing from 25 to 100 each of 

 21 clonal stocks. A part of the more valuable stocks were set upright 

 for stooling and the rest set on an incline for laying down along the row. 

 No rooted layers will be taken this year but the plants will be cut back in 

 the spring, giving them time to gain vigor before being subjected to 

 cutting. 



Some of the cooperative clpnal stock orchards are doing very well and 

 others are failures, owing, in some cases, to unfavorable soil conditions 

 and in others to poor management or neglect or perhaps bad luck. One 

 new orchard of about 400 trees was set near Three Rivers. 



The clonal stock orchard set in 1937 made excellent growth and a few 

 trees bore good crops. Baldwin grew more on Mailing I and I\' than 

 on Mailing XV and Mailing XVI, but Golden Delicious grew more on 

 Mailing XVI than on Mailing V. Usually trees on semi-dwarfing stocks 

 grow about as rapidly as those on standard stocks but begin to bear 

 earlier, and this checks growth. Trees on very dwarfing stocks may grow 

 less rapidly from the start and are likely to prove useful only in home 

 gardens. 



The Mcintosh and Wealthy orchard set in 1928 became crowded and 

 most of the Wealthy trees were pulled out, leaving a few scattered trees 

 for pollination. Two plots running across the rows received a hay mulch 

 to see how this aflfects the trees on different stocks, this treatment having 

 given verj' favorable results in an adjacent orchard on seedling roots. 



The larger orchard of 900 trees, set in 1939, made fair growth and the 

 loss of trees from various orchard ills has thus far been very small. They 

 are being grown under strip cultivation with mulcli around the trees. All 

 the Mailing stocks in our stock collection, except VI and VII, are repre- 

 sented. The smaller orchard of 55 trees suffered from breakage of the 

 tops and all trees were cut back and made a good whip growth. 



A survey of the average growth as measured by trunk diameter fails 

 to show any effect of the dwarfing stocks during the first two years of 

 growth in the orchard. Trees on Mailing III and IX have grown more 

 than the same varieties on the "standard" Mailing stocks in as many 

 cases as they have grown less. The dwarfing effect will appear at fruit- 

 ing, and possibly before, with some combinations. 



Another interesting observation is that the yearling whips have in- 

 creased in diameter at least as much as the trees that were two years old 

 at setting, which supports the belief tliat one-year trees will reach bearing 

 size as soon as two-year trees. 



