Performance of 'golden delicious' and 'delicious' apples on dwarfing rootstocks

A planting of 'Golden Delicious' (GD) and a spur type 'Delicious' (RD) was established in 1984 to evaluate their performance on P.2, P.22, B.146, B.491, M.9, Lancep, Cepiland, CG.10, and CG.24. In addition to those rootstocks RD was also propagated on M.20 and M.26. At the end of the 12th growing season RD trees had a smaller trunk cross sectional area than GD on the same rootstock. Trees on P.22 for both cultivars had not filled their allocated space by 1995 and consistently had the lowest per tree yields. Trees on CG.24 were the largest trees in the planting as measured by TCA. GD and RD on Lancep, Cepiland, and CG.10 were relatively similar in size to the same cultivar on M.9. The combination of GD/P.2 was significantly larger than GD/M.9, but RD/P.2 was smaller than RD/M.9. GD on Cepiland and RD on M.26 had the highest cumulative yield at the end of 12 seasons. Yields in individual years were paired for analysis due to biennial bearing tendencies. In individual paired years GD on Cepiland had the highest yield in 3 out of 4 periods. Tree efficiency tended to be less on the more vigorous rootstocks. Overall Lancep and Cepiland tended to induce a greater increase in yield on RD than on GD compared to yields on M.9.