Rootstock has a large impact, inter alia, on the growth of trees, yielding and fruit quality. Despite continuous breeding programmes, M.9 rootstock is still the best rootstock for apple trees. In the spring of 2007, at the Fruit Experimental Station at Samotwór near Wrocław, an experiment was set up, under which several less known rootstocks, grown mainly in Eastern Europe, were evaluated. The subject of the studies were 'Mutsu' trees planted with the spacing of 3.5 m between rows, and the within-row spacing of 0.8 m (PB-4, B.146), 1.2 m (B.491, P 16) and 1.7 m (B.7-35, B.396 and ARM 18). M.9 and M.26 were used as standard rootstocks. Until the fifth year after planting, the most vigorous were trees on the B.7-35 rootstock, while trees grafted on the PB-4 showed the weakest growth. The largest yield was obtained for apple trees grafted on the B.396. Trees growing on the PB-4 had the smallest fruits. Apples from trees grafted on other rootstocks were characterized by a similar mass.

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