Greetings all. Are there any southern/mid atlantic growers on this forum who could enlighten me about fireblight resistance of Limbertwigs? Am interested in your actual field experience with this. This spring I will graft all these on Geneva 30 rootstock:

Black Limbertwig
Myers Royal LT
Red Royal LT
Summer LT
Caney Fork LT
Brushy Mtn LT

Years ago I had a phone conversation with the late, great Henry Morton of TN who rescued many of the LT's now in circulation.

Thanks for any info. Steve

Eastern Shore Md, Zone 7

40 year battle scarred veteran of The Fireblight Wars

Backyard grower of Kaki, pawpaw, a few apples I grafted on G-30 and now expanding into Limbertwig apples.

20 trees total

Steve,
A short experience with Geneva on southern heirlooms:
Two years ago I ordered some Geneva 41 rootstock, hoping to grow some southern heirlooms for what was to be a home orchard high density planting. In speaking with the nursery where I ordered them, I was informed that the Geneva 41 has an incompatibility with many of the southern heirlooms. He wanted to know if they did well. I ordered them anyway and grafted 50 of those G41's in Spring 2013 (and I'll have to recount to be sure) I think I have only 8 or so still living... All those still living are Vandevere. All the rest of them died for no apparent reason, planted in a nursery bed next to other trees grafted at the same time on M111 and M7 that did fine. Was it virus incompatibility? I'm thinking so. I should have listened and gone with a different rootstock. Lesson learned: listen to the nurseryman.

Now that's not what you asked for but I felt an obligation to bring it up since you grafted onto a Geneva. I hope yours does well. Since I'm pretty new to this I figure it'll be one of those things I needed to learn the hard way. Hopefully it'll help someone else.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2015 04:36AM by Bodi Wallace.

Bodi,

Thanks for your reply. So far all my G30 southern heirloom grafts are growing well- five to seven feet of growth in 2014, nice robust growth. G 41 must be an entirely different animal.

I have Lee Calhoun's book. So little disease information is available though, at least in print, on these old varieties. It's a matter of trial and error and figure it out as we go. But I have high hopes for my Limbertwigs. Have ordered more rare scions to graft this April-Hall, Park's Pippin, Green Pippin, Aunt Rachel, Magnum Bonum, Horse. Will start topworking a friend's old apple tree, will take three years.

Steve