Grafting 101

Never too early to be planning for next spring. I have a no name apple tree on front side of house that produces about 8, 5 gallon buckets of 2.5 inch yellow apples every year like clockwork. I want to take some of the heavy producing end branches and graft these to rootstock early next spring. Planning to order 10 rootstocks from cummins. Will then plant these trees at my land. Should be great producers if the are true to the parent.

Any tips on what to do, not do? Never tried this, so new to grafting. I have watched a few "this is how you do it" youtube videos, for what that is worth. Pics of parent tree below.

Parent tree. No idea what type.

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Parent tree starts slow drop in mid sept, all down by late oct. I am looking for food source versus hunting spot, so the slightly early drop time is fine by me.

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This tree initially was 100% crabapple that produced very small red berries a d never had an apple on it. Somewhere along the way, an apple seed established in the main crotch of the crabapple tree. Over a period of 10 years or so, the apple tree has out competed the crabapple and is now 80% apple, 20% crabapple. There are two types of blossoms every spring, they are close in terms of when they blossom, but not exact. Might explain the heavy production every year. Never seen anything like it, but wish i had 10 of these on my hunting property. Trying to solve that!

That is one of the cleanest looking trees (apples and leaves) that I've ever seen. If that tree isn't being sprayed, I would say it is highly disease resistant, which is hard to find in apples.

I'm amazed at the story about an apple seed starting a new tree growing out of a crabapple. I don't doubt you, but I wonder if a sprout may have come out below the graft, and the nice apple is the rootstock. I've seen that happen before. My FIL had an ornamental pear, and he had a sprout to come off the base that was a Bartlett. They had used Bartlett as a rootstock. They likely had a stool bed of Bartlett to produce their rootstocks.

Anyway, if you have watched all the videos on grafting, you should be ready to go. That's how I learned.

Only thing i do is give it 3-5 lbs of fertilizer a year, never sprayed it. Never any signs of CAR or any other disease. Apples are not the best quality when mature, but for wildlife it seems perfect. No idea how this tree became a split as it was here when we bought the house.

TheOldOak said:

Only thing i do is give it 3-5 lbs of fertilizer a year, never sprayed it. Never any signs of CAR or any other disease. Apples are not the best quality when mature, but for wildlife it seems perfect. No idea how this tree became a split as it was here when we bought the house.

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It's a keeper. I think my theory about the sprout and rootstock is correct. It could have also happened in reverse - a crab could have been grafted to an apple. Either way, that would explain the two different trees.

If you can get a limb close to the ground might be worth trying to layer it now. There are several methods too many to explain but you wouldn’t have to graft doing that might give both a shot.