Graft question

[Nova]

I have 2 great apple trees(Haroldson I believe) at my house that have great apples with really good production. I also have 10-12' crabs grown from seed that produce well, but nothing seems to like the apples. Can I use the crab trees as giant root stock and just graft a branch from the good trees to the crab trees? Anyone ever tried this? Been watching a lot of grafting videos lately and I really want to give this a shot.

If it's possible, when is the best time of year to do this?

 

[buckvelvet]

A mature tree your describing (crabs producing fruit) would be best grafted to when the bark is slipping. Your in MN so I'm assuming your trees aren't near that point as as mine in W MI are not close to even breaking bud yet. Bark slipping is when the 'rind' so to speak of the bark around the cambium layer of tree is easily peeled back. I did some bark grafts last year, so easy its ridiculous when the bark is slipping and you get a great 'take' percentage.

I'm sure you mean Haralson as the apple variety you like, great variety indeed. That variety is self sterile however, so perhaps you wouldn't want to graft all of your crabs at once if you want them the haralson to keep producing, though that variety does have a biennial tendency. Aside from that, you wouldn't want all your trees to be Haralson either as its again, self sterile, it needs a pollinator to produce it's fruit. You would want to acquire scion of another variety in/around its same flowering group. Great source of information here about pollinating different varieties....https://www.orangepippintrees.com/pollinationchecker.aspx?a=0&v=1181

Its not a whole 'branch' per say your grafting onto the tree. Its a scion of 'last years growth', what this means is you remove a stick of wood from the variety you want to graft and use a piece of that that is last years growth. You can tell if its last years growth by the coloring as well as the marker where it grew from last year.

 

[Nova]

Thanks for the help and sorry for the misspell, yes Haralson. I am not going to do them all. I have several "good" crabs varieties and pears around as well. Just wanting to try a couple of the good producers with poor quality apples.

I have already picked out a couple good scion prospects, new growth from last year.

Is it better/easier to do a bark graft or cut back an existing branch and graft to that?

 

[Prof.Kent]

Thanks for the help and sorry for the misspell, yes Haralson. I am not going to do them all. I have several "good" crabs varieties and pears around as well. Just wanting to try a couple of the good producers with poor quality apples.

I have already picked out a couple good scion prospects, new growth from last year.

Is it better/easier to do a bark graft or cut back an existing branch and graft to that?

Cut back several branches and graft to those with rind grafts. Leave a few original branches to provide pollination for the new Haralson scions. It worked for me, see here

 

[Nova]

Thanks much for the video!!