I did a 'proof of life' walk among my trees today to get the big picture on my grafting success.
I had originally planned on creating a bunch of Espalier trees, so I ordered 10 B9 rootstocks. Changed my mind and I'm just planting a row of 10 to halfway block view of our backyard from the road. I chose 10 of my most vigorous growing varieties to graft to them in order to get them to size, and fruitful, as quick as possible. 8 of ten were successful. The two that failed were scions from my own frankentree, and the source branches never leafed out this spring. Those two failures, Enterprise and Golden Russet, will be regrafted next spring.
I had 6 each of M111 and B118 rootstocks that I did not graft to last year. Against advice, I chose to dig them out of the nursery and move them to their final spots, and graft to them at the same time. 10 of the 12 were successful, and have really taken off.
I tend to be a penny pincher, more often due to necessity than choice, so for my remaining grafts I purchased seedling apples from a county conservation sale at $1 a piece rather than designer rootstocks. As I expected they were smaller caliper than regular rootstocks, so I planted 40 of the 125 directly into the nursery for future use. The 85 I did graft were noticeably more difficult, and I ended up with 60 successful, or 70%.
Pretty happy with results so far.
I had originally planned on creating a bunch of Espalier trees, so I ordered 10 B9 rootstocks. Changed my mind and I'm just planting a row of 10 to halfway block view of our backyard from the road. I chose 10 of my most vigorous growing varieties to graft to them in order to get them to size, and fruitful, as quick as possible. 8 of ten were successful. The two that failed were scions from my own frankentree, and the source branches never leafed out this spring. Those two failures, Enterprise and Golden Russet, will be regrafted next spring.
I had 6 each of M111 and B118 rootstocks that I did not graft to last year. Against advice, I chose to dig them out of the nursery and move them to their final spots, and graft to them at the same time. 10 of the 12 were successful, and have really taken off.
I tend to be a penny pincher, more often due to necessity than choice, so for my remaining grafts I purchased seedling apples from a county conservation sale at $1 a piece rather than designer rootstocks. As I expected they were smaller caliper than regular rootstocks, so I planted 40 of the 125 directly into the nursery for future use. The 85 I did graft were noticeably more difficult, and I ended up with 60 successful, or 70%.
Pretty happy with results so far.
