Rootstock and interstock influence on vigor, fruit and leaf properties of sour cherry cultivars

The paper presents how different rootstocks and the ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry as an interstock affect the vigor, fruit and leaf properties in different sour cherry cultivars. The trial included four rootstocks (Mazzard seedling, Mahaleb seedling, ‘Colt’ and Mazzard seedling with ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry as an interstock) grafted with four sour cherry cultivars (‘Meteor Korai’, ‘Rexelle’, ‘Heimanns Konservenweichsel’ and ‘Kelleriis 14’). The variability of most properties, in addition to the genotype of cultivars, was very significantly influenced by rootstocks. Within studied cultivars ‘Meteor Korai’ had the highest, while ‘Kelleriis 14’ showed the lowest vigor. At the same time, cultivar ‘Kelleriis 14’ had the highest fruit weight and largest leaf area. When it comes to the influence of the rootstock, the highest average values of the majority of the studied traits were established on seedling rootstocks, slightly less on the clonal rootstock ‘Colt’, and the lowest on Mazzard seedling with ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry as interstock.