Is this the R. multiflora used as an undertstock? There seems to be so many I am getting confused which is which.
You can use any of them.
There are some thornless selctions that people like to use to make grafting/budding easier. Thornless stems (they still have prickles under the leaves) is a simply inherited recessive trait. If you have a couple different thornless selections growing near each other and save seed, chances are that you will get a lot of thornless progeny if you want to use seedlings instead of cuttings. I think that generally diploid R. multiflora are self incompatible and need another clone for successful fruit and seed development. I think that some of the thornless R. multiflora rootstock selection descendants I have are a little leaky in their self incompatibility and there are some selfs getting through.
Sincerely,
David
You can get Burrs Multiflora VID from UC Davis. It is thornless.
Where are you located, Simon?
I have some thornless selections grown from seed that I use. By virtue of their being grown from seed I would assume they are virus free, but I have not tested them.
I have multiflora seeds which can be grown for rootstock.
About 1/3 of plants will be thornless.
Germination very good.
I’m in Tasmania, Australia. I have two plants of R. multiflora that I found in the ‘reject bin’ of a small nursery and thought I’d try to save them and see how they go. No sign of RMV but is hard to tell as they were very undernourished.