How would you top work this crab?

[Native Hunter]

This is one of about 5 crabs that I bought a few years ago which needs to be top worked. Would you cut off below the branching and leave one trunk or cut off above the branching and top work multiple limbs.

I know this should have been done sooner, but that's what you do when you don't have time to do everything.

I don't have a lot of experience in top working trees but cutting high with multiple limbs seems the best to me. I just wanted some more opinions.

PS: I don't have money growing on trees. I just stuck the dollar there to give you a better idea of the size of the tree. o_O

 

[chickenlittle]

Either way works. If you have scionwood, multiple grafts keep some of the structure already in place. Might depend if you want to get back to a central leader or not.

 

[greyphase]

I might be wrong but I'd cut the three limbs off about a foot high this winter and let water spouts grow and graft to them the next spring.

 

[Turkey Creek]

I will second chickenlittle's thinking. Grafting to the limbs if you want multiple varieties on the same tree would be easy.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Native - We don't care about the " dollar tree ". We want to see the " 50's and 100's trees " and would like scion / seed for your buddies on here !! :D
I have no knowledge of top-working - so can't contribute. But the door was open ^^^^^ .........:p

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks guys.

I have plenty of scion wood this year so will probably go with grafting the limbs. The water sprouts are something I hadn't thought of so might try that on one too.

Bowsnbucks - when I show some of my persimmon trees later on you will see a $100 bill on them - that's how much I love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Native Hunter]

BTW - last year DLH and I grafted a big crab like the one shown above but limbs were much higher, so we did 3 scions on the main trunk. All 3 took off like crazy and were probably 5 feet tall by July. We had a storm come through and broke 2 completely off and broke the third one loose just a little bit. I braced it up and it recovered. Will try to get some pics later on of our grafting this year. We have a full day planned out.

 

[Neahawg]

It might be cool to cut all three big branches and graft a different variety to each branch be a cool frakentree.

 

[Native Hunter]

It might be cool to cut all three big branches and graft a different variety to each branch be a cool frakentree.

We have some wild pears to graft that I had already decided to do that on. Should be fun....

 

[Bowsnbucks]

What kind of fruit do the wild pears put on ?? Any edible ??

 

[Native Hunter]

What kind of fruit do the wild pears put on ?? Any edible ??

The ones I am going to graft put out little dime sized pears. However, I had a pear to come back from a rootstock that is a nice pear. It put out a big crop last year. It resembled a Kieffer, but was a little earlier than my Kieffers. My guess was that someone used pear seeds from a Kieffer or other good pear to create their rootstock. So when my tree died and came back from the roots, I had a pear with good heritage. The tree also appears to have excellent DR. I'm going to leave that tree and not graft it.

Some of these that I'm going to graft were pears that sprouted in a field, and I dug them up. I suspect that they have parentage from ornamental varieties, because the fruit is not good. We intend to change that sometime in late March. Some of them have got pretty big and should have been grafted 3 years ago, but better late than never.

There is another wild pear in the fence row at my home that puts out a massive amount of golf ball sized pears each year that drop mid November. I like the drop time of it, and deer do come in my yard and eat the fruit, but the taste is not good for human consumption. I haven't taken any scions from it, because I have some other pears that taste good which will drop about the same time. The new road being built will probably get this one. It's so close to where the R/W fence will be I can't tell for sure yet. But, I will know soon. The bulldozers moved in two days ago, and our old apple orchard is now gone for good. I was able to save scions and root suckers from all the ones we wanted to save, but it sure is sickening to look out the window now.

 

[DLH]

I would top work each limb with either something you want to experiment with that drops in November or pick something you know to be a good apple and work the main trunk. I think you are in that tough spot of finding a gun season apple you are pleased with.

 

[Native Hunter]

I would top work each limb with either something you want to experiment with that drops in November or pick something you know to be a good apple and work the main trunk. I think you are in that tough spot of finding a gun season apple you are pleased with.

I think so Daniel. So far they all drop too early or don't drop at all. Thank God for pears and persimmons.....:)

I think each limb is the way to go, and since they are so large we will go with multiple scions on each one. Good thing I collected so many scions recently. And good thing that you will be there helping me....:)