Newbie Graft

[Newbie]

If I'm a newbie in foodplots and habitat work, then I'm an ultra-newbie to grafting. I have a handful of various apple trees planted along a few food plots but I'm intrigued in learning more about growing and maintaining fruit trees, including grafting. I've been reading up on the fruit tree forums as of late, and read Native's post on topworking with bark grafts over on the DeerHunter Forum.

When I bought my place, there was a large apple tree in the center of a field which looked a little tired but has continually been going downhill over the past few years. I've pruned it back a few times & each spring it just looks a little worse. It may no longer be long for this earth and may meet the chainsaw, but this spring I noticed a bunch of shoots coming off the trunk & got me thinking that just maybe I could graft to the root stock & get it producing again. Any thoughts or recommendations?

Thanks!






Edit: I see Derek posted something similar with his pear trees recently, so I will follow along on that thread as well.

 

[Telemark]

Is that sapsucker damage?

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

That's a big apple tree. You could certainly graft a shoot on that tree as I don't see any downsides to that.

When you say the tree is going downhill, what do you mean?

I wouldn't take a chainsaw to a 50+ year old apple tree unless it was dead.