Excerpt from the article “Why the UCBI Pistachio Rootstock is Salinity Tolerant” by Louise Ferguson, Extension Specialist Department of Plant Sciences, University of California Davis, on the San Joaquin Valley Trees and Vines Website.

In the late 1990s Blake Sanden, Steven Grattan, Craig Kallsen and Louise Ferguson did a series of experiments demonstrating the relative salinity tolerance of the primary California pistachio rootstocks. In these trials, yield and quality were the indicators of salinity tolerance. Currently, of the four seedling rootstocks tested, the single species, PGI,  and the hybrid, UCBI hybrid have emerged as the two major industry rootstocks, both available as seedling rootstocks and the latter UCBI rootstock now available as a clonally propagated rootstock. Read the whole article on San Joaquin Valley Trees & Vines to learn about our current knowledge and ongoing research about why UCBI has high salinity tolerance.