Fruitwise guide to grafting over an apple tree

[firstbasmen12]

alright stephen i have a silly question. if i take the rootstock from a standerd full size apple tree and graft dwarf apple scions on to it at a young age will the tree become a dwarf apple tree? ben, from washington

[MegaJim79]

Also, I wanted to mention.....

why are all the MM111's leaning in this block?

[MegaJim79]

MM111....nice to see!

This rootstock should be planted deeper to discourage it's tendency to form burrknots. Looks like you have it about right...2 inches above ground level.

[markdadude1]

you're collection of videos are excellent. The wonders of internet video, it beats penciled drawings hands down - thankyou so much for the advice. I am going to give this a go!

[agrotis79]

This M111 is very small for 10 years of age

[stephenhayesuk]

you're right.

these trees were put into the worst soil on our holding, it is very light and sandy and does not retain moisture well. Also they were forgotten as we were elsewhere looking after our main crop of dessert apples which we sell, whereas this is an orchard of cider aples mainly to make some cider for our own use and to share with friends.

BUT, where we have planted on 111 next to 106 elsewhere on better soil, it has not grown much more than the MM106 anyway

[agrotis79]

Can you show us an M111 & MM106 on the same type of "GOOD SOIL" and of the same variety so we can see the difference in size?

[stephenhayesuk]

I can't do that very realistically since we are looking at different varieties, different years of planting and other vagaries. Please accept my overall impression that all things being equal MM111 grows bigger than MM106, like the books say, but not as dramatically bigger as you might think. I have not done any controlled experiments, just a little cut and paste anmd patch, for example where a sunset on 106 died I replanted with a Kidd's Orange Red on 111 as that was what I had.

[murchie5]

stephenhayesuk

hey great video's i think you do a great job but as a grafter my self you are a very messy grafter nothing against you if it works good on you but to me its very messy work

[agrotis79]

What's so messy in specific here friend?

[stephenhayesuk]

I hear what you're saying murchie.

I am an enthuisiastic amateur sharing his interest rather than a professional-there are some good professional sites out there-but there is a difference between working on a production line, graftng 100 trees on to a regular batch of stocks, and top working over an individual tree to a new variety.

grafting over an established tree in the way I show here is an inherently untidy process, as is so much of our lives. No worries.

[ibdragonne]

I am creating a community garden.Last fall, the city removed trees, one of them being a rather large (16" dia) old crab apple tree cut 2'" from the ground and is weeping sap.

Can I graft to it? What technique would work best? What should I do to protect the stump until I get branches to graft? Can I do apples AND pears?

All responses welcomed! I'm ready to get down and dirty.. lol

Brian

[stephenhayesuk]

Greetings Brian

1 16" diameter is aone big old tree! However if it is weeping sap there is a chance of grafting successfully

I wudl go for multiple rind grafting and paint the stump with bitumistic tar or similar.

You can graft apples to apples and pears to pears but not pears to apples. I have heard somewhere it might be barely possible with some cultivars but i wouldn't try, none of my books mention it.

you have nothing to lose by rind grafting this big old tree, go for it.

[stephenhayesuk]

PS woth such a big diameter, you may have difficulty securing the graft with an al-round tie. You may do better to secure the graft with a very thin nail, thei important thing is to get good cambium to cambium contact and hold it frmly until union has taken place.

Another way might be to let some new growth come up from the stump and then saddle graft on to that next year.

[ibdragonne]

Thank you! I was wondering if new growth might occur, approx. 10 feet away, there is a 7 foot sapling that appears to be the same variety and was curious if it may be already attached to the same root system as this stump?

This sapling has partially grown into a 4 foot section of wrought-iron fence railing that I want to remove and use (the railing) without damaging the sapling, after the "surgery" will the tar help the wound? (the answer is probably obvious)

Thanks again!

Brian

[morriswil32]

Crimson King Rocks!

[shellandty]

grafting and budding are the same putting one plant to another for aesthetic or survival reasons. but pollination is propagation and hybriding. propagation is done by seeds or cuttings or propagating a hybrid by pollination and is done by pollination of two types compatable producing the hybrid seeds to be planted mixing the two into one type .

[stephenhayesuk]

I know that all citruses (orange, lemon, grapefruit) are compatible, but not I believe cherry and apple.

Apples and pears are quite closely related and I read somewhere that a barely viable graft had been made, but barely viable is not much use to anyone and nobody does this.

New varieties come from cross pollination , but apples breed only apples (although thousands of varieties) and are grafted on to apple stocks to produce a predictable clone.

[shellandty]

you can graft lemons, limes, grapefruits,and oranges to same tree. and you can graft cherry and apple. and you can cherry to plum. and different kinds of roses to one . they need to take same soil type and nutrients. you can do several types of grafting. there is plenty of information available online.

[stephenhayesuk]

Thanks Simon

the pencils of scion wood from the tree you wish to propagate are just removed as in the ordinary course of winter pruning.

As far as the stock is concerned, it all depends. You may be grafting on to a small single leader rootstock, or you may be grafting over a larger tree. Its up to you. If say you ingrafted 3 pencils of 1 to 3 different scions into an established tree and left most of it, the original variety would still fruit. i have a few like this. Handy for pollination.

[simonzon]

Terrific video, very informative. Just one question - when it comes to slicing the root stock or original tree, would I need to cut off all existing branches, and if I do not do so, would some of the original variety still fruit?

[stephenhayesuk]

King Crimson do, or did, indeed rock..

I bought their first single 'in the court of the crmson king' and had a copy of ther clasic '21st century scizoid man' on a sampler as a 15 year old in around 1970(couldn't afford the album on my pocket money).

but should not be confused with the apple 'Crimson King'!

[marshallbentley]

All good except your grafted limbs are not large enough to support even 1 apple?

[stephenhayesuk]

true, but hopefully they will grow.

[stephenhayesuk]

(2 years later) we had a good crop of apples, varieties Dabinett and Harry Master's jersey, from these top worked trees, which I am glad to say were used to make some very fine cider which we are enjoying right now

[MadBadVoodo]

Killer Vid!

Five Stars!!

[ballhitch2]

have one tree in garden about 5 years. could i graft couple varieties on and would it then cross pollenate itself. It gives a few fruit but have no room for another to help it.

[stephenhayesuk]

Yes you can do this no problem. If you have a tree which gives good fruit but its hard to pollinate, you could just graft in one of 2 small pieces of wood from a suitable pollinator variety. do some research fist about which variety, pleny of information on Keepers web site (Google on keepers apple nursery Kent). plenty other info on web re pollination

[414gbg]

Great video!

Is it possible to graft plum pens to other tree types with a successfull outcome?

//Sincere Regards

[stephenhayesuk]

No. you can only graft betwen trees of the same kind, e.g. pear to pear, apple to apple, although with stone fruits there is some overlap. Plums are hard to graft although I have done it, using plum rootstocks.