Grafting apple trees

Gardening to 'grow your own food' from square foot to half an acre !!
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fabindia
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Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

Going to try it this year.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, specifically Youtube, I think I know what to do. I can buy the root stocks online from a place I have used for trees and hedging in the past and always been very happy with them.

I'll let you know how I get on but would be interested if any one here has any experience, particularly success.
Michael
Davidh
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by Davidh »

I have been volunteering in a few projects restoring old walled gardens. As these are all volunteer based projects funds are tight. So part of the work has been grafting our own fruit trees as this is a lot cheaper and the people love the idea of being able to try grafting where they would never get the chance normally. As part of this we graft 200 mainly Apple, but a few Pear, Cherry, Plum and Peach trees, as these are old wall gardens getting the old fruit varieties is important and a lot of garden centres don’t have the varieties we are looking for and it’s great to get to know others who have done this type of thing and exchange material. The main technique we used is the modified Cleft graft and we did a few whip and tongue grafts so link below . We have had over 80% success and the enjoyment on people’s faces when a scion starts to grow was brilliant.
I hope you get as much enjoyment out of this as we have.

http://www.santrycommunitygarden.ie/upl ... mation.pdf
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fishpond
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fishpond »

Hi
I will be doing a pear tree this year on to Quince A and see how that goes (I will let you know)--never done it before, but I have a tree that is struggling where it is and it is a little too big to move, so I thought I would attempt to graft it, then replant in a different area.
Davidh Many thanks for that link :-D
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Mo
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by Mo »

Welcome, David.
That link is interesting, especially the kinds of soils that suit different rootstocks - I'd not thought about that before.
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fabindia
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

Update on my grafting: I have had about 50% success rate (5 out 10 root stocks). A couple of weeks ago I was thinking in terms of 1 out of 10 but the warmer weather has encouraged a few more to start springing into leaf.

Of the 50% that haven't taken, all the root stocks are growing, so I may be able to reuse them next winter.
Michael
fabindia
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

Further update, lost one of the trees I thought had taken but on the other hand, amazingly, one I didn't think had taken has shot away just the past week or so. Nature seems to have this happy knack of doing expected and strange things.
Michael
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elliebear15
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by elliebear15 »

Wow! I can't even imagine trying that, sounds complex. But I did get 3 little apple trees quite cheaply and am attempting to make espalier trees out of them. It was dreadful planting them and then cutting virtually everything off. That was in March. But now they are all growing nicely and doing just what the books say they should, so fingers crossed they will turn out OK.
fabindia
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

elliebear15 wrote:now they are all growing nicely and doing just what the books say they should, so fingers crossed they will turn out OK.

I have found little apple trees to be quite hardy and fairly easy to get growing and fruiting well after a few years.

The grafting was surprising simple, but like most things requires a little care and in my case a bit of luck.
Michael
animartco
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by animartco »

Hi All, I thought I would come in on this topic. I have an ancient orchard which was grafted ages ago, with loads of old varieties. Most of the trees are now dead or dying, and I wondered if anyone would be interested in seeing if they can resurrect some of these old varieties, to graft onto their trees. They are mostly apples with some improved damson and some gauges if they're still alive. cheers Gillian
fabindia
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

animartco wrote:Hi All, I thought I would come in on this topic. I have an ancient orchard which was grafted ages ago, with loads of old varieties. Most of the trees are now dead or dying, and I wondered if anyone would be interested in seeing if they can resurrect some of these old varieties, to graft onto their trees. They are mostly apples with some improved damson and some gauges if they're still alive. cheers Gillian


I could give it a go for you Gillian.

Dead trees are obviously not much good. The dying may be a possibility. Do they have any 'this year's growth' on them? If so, you need to wait till the leaves fall and the tree becomes dormant for the winter. Then if you could select a dozen or so 'pencil' sized cuttings of this year's growth and post them to me, I'll get some root stocks and graft them this winter.

The ones I grafted have taken amazingly (I'll have to post some pictures) so if any of yours take, we could wait till the following winter and I could post them back as bare root trees.
Michael
fabindia
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Re: Grafting apple trees

Post by fabindia »

Further update on last year's grafting.

Still with the 50% success rate. Just lifted one of the trees to give to a colleague at work. I still have the root stocks from those that didn't actually take, so I will try grafting on to these again in a few weeks time.
Michael
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