At times I debate the wisdom of ordering trees from mail order nurseries. There are good things and bad things about this tree and its service. This was from Raintree nursery.
The good things - it was available. Multigrafts such as this can be challenging to find locally. This was billed as "Seneca, Early Laxton, Rosy Gage, Italian, and Stanley" with minus one, wildcard, so sold as a 4-graft. It's a gamble as to which one is going to be missing.
The tree was very sturdy, and the root system was very good.
The labeled grafts on this tree: Stanley, Italian, Rosy Gage. The remaining, large branch, is not labeled so no way to know. It's difficult to decide, but this tree might have all 5. I don't need another Stanley, so i will overgraft that with something else. What I wanted the most were Rosy Gage, Laxton, and Seneca, and I'm only clear on one of those. Pay your money and take your chances. I would call this somewhere between good and bad, at least they filled the order correctly.
The bad thing - Below the graft, on the rootstock, the bark is badly damaged, girdling half way around the tree. It should still grow, and heal the wound, as long as this damage does not become infected. This kind of damage might be OK for a sale tree, but not for a premium priced tree. I imagine this is machine damage, although it could be animals.
So I planted. The wound is above ground. I need to add a wire guard tomorrow, forgot today in the rain.
