Last year I found some crab apples growing in my swamp in what has to be the wettest part. They're only about an inch to 1.5 inches diameter and 8 feet tall but I am considering topworking them. Would you mind taking pics of your process and posting them? I'm not doing my topworking this year but will probably do it next spring.
I am not an expert on this. Others here are far more experienced.
I usually find a straight section of the rootstock tree and cut it off above it. Preferably a 1-2 inch section. I split it with an old butcher knife and hammer. Seal with toilet bowl wax and wrap very tight with e tape. Sometimes I do a bark graft.
Those by my home orchard, I leave one or two nurse limbs to pull sap up to the graft.
For trees that I won’t see very often, I leave many more nurse limbs, including enough to shade the graft from the winter and summer sun. I am in an area with cold winters and some hot dry summers. A short prairie type of environment originally. I like the shade on the south and southwest side.
Pinch off new growth during the summer that interferes with the scion. I have even cut off part of the nurse limb on trees at home that I can water and watch.
This spring, I cut off the extra nurse limbs down to one or two and want to see how these grafts survived the winter. I still kept the nurse limb on the south side.
I have two or three Big Dogs now producing apples on the wild swamp crab. That swamp crab does well. I wish I had more rootstock from it.
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