doublelunger
Yearling... With promise
After reading numerous posts from many of you who have grafted your own fruit trees I decided I wanted to give it a try this year too. I ordered 50, 1/4" Bud118 rootstock seedlings from Copenhaven farms located in Oregon. I explained to them that this was my first attempt at grafting trees and that I wanted to bench graft the trees using the whip & tongue method. I knew I wanted Bud118 rootstock because that is what most of my current apple trees are planted on and they're doing well. They were very helpful in telling me what size rootstock I should buy and gave me some helpful tips as well. Overall I had a great experience with Copenhaven farms, I would highly recommend them and I'm sure I'll be buying more rootstock from them again in the future. Some of my scion wood came from my backyard orchard (42 apple trees I've planted over the last 5 years) and then some varieties that I didn't already have came from the US GRIN program I learned about from you all on this forum.
On Saturday April 2nd, I bench grafted all 50 trees using the whip and tongue method. It took me 10 or so trees to get the hang of it but I got into a nice groove after a while and it ended up taking me just over 5 hours to graft the 50 trees. I kept them in my storage room in my basement where it's a constant 62 degrees for about 2 weeks. I then moved them to a north facing window where they'd get minimal sunlight but it was a few degrees warmer (67 degrees) for another week. Most of the buds began to pop at that point so I moved them to a south facing window in my house where they could get lots of sunlight but not have to compete with wind. I left them there until this past Saturday, May 7th when I decided to plant then in a 4'x12' raised box in my backyard. To date 48 of the 50 grafts have growth on the scion wood and of the two that appear to have failed grafts the one the rootstock has some good growth I'll continue to let grow and then I'll probably just t-bud to it this fall. The other rootstock appears to be dead, I planted it anyway hoping it will suddenly wake up and get some growth so I can t-bud to that as well this fall.
Here's a list of the varieties I grafted:
Dabinett-2
Hewes Virginia Crab-2
Bramley's Seedling-2
Golden Russet-2
Harlason-1
Chisel Jersey-2
Chestnut crab-2
Cox's Orange Pippin-2
Frostbite-2
Hudson's Golden Gem-2
Winesap-2
Keepsake-2
Whitney crab-2
Kerr-2
Golden Hornet-2
Co-op 31-2
Priscilla-2
Liberty-3
Florina-4
Gold Rush-4
Enterprise-4
Galarina-4
On Saturday April 2nd, I bench grafted all 50 trees using the whip and tongue method. It took me 10 or so trees to get the hang of it but I got into a nice groove after a while and it ended up taking me just over 5 hours to graft the 50 trees. I kept them in my storage room in my basement where it's a constant 62 degrees for about 2 weeks. I then moved them to a north facing window where they'd get minimal sunlight but it was a few degrees warmer (67 degrees) for another week. Most of the buds began to pop at that point so I moved them to a south facing window in my house where they could get lots of sunlight but not have to compete with wind. I left them there until this past Saturday, May 7th when I decided to plant then in a 4'x12' raised box in my backyard. To date 48 of the 50 grafts have growth on the scion wood and of the two that appear to have failed grafts the one the rootstock has some good growth I'll continue to let grow and then I'll probably just t-bud to it this fall. The other rootstock appears to be dead, I planted it anyway hoping it will suddenly wake up and get some growth so I can t-bud to that as well this fall.
Here's a list of the varieties I grafted:
Dabinett-2
Hewes Virginia Crab-2
Bramley's Seedling-2
Golden Russet-2
Harlason-1
Chisel Jersey-2
Chestnut crab-2
Cox's Orange Pippin-2
Frostbite-2
Hudson's Golden Gem-2
Winesap-2
Keepsake-2
Whitney crab-2
Kerr-2
Golden Hornet-2
Co-op 31-2
Priscilla-2
Liberty-3
Florina-4
Gold Rush-4
Enterprise-4
Galarina-4
