Stump grafting Honeycrisp?

Maddog66

5 year old buck +
Late last fall on our new farm a bear tore my appx 12 year old, very productive, Honey Crisp tree right down to a 3’ tall stump (5-6” dia). The previous owner planted it and let it develop a narrow-angle crotch about 3’ from the ground. Then he removed the cage, and the rest is history. I’ll post pics when I can.

Anyway, I figure I‘ll still have a very vigorous root system under that stump this spring, and I remembered reading about grafting onto stumps. I also happened to be out pruning my Honey Crisp tree at home. Got me thinking. I researched it a little bit on the internet.

Can anyone give any advice on trying to graft my home tree onto that stump? My biggest question right now is, should I harvest water sprouts from my home tree and put them in the refrigerator now? My home is zone 4b and snow is mostly gone but the farm is 3b so it’ll be awhile before the 3’ drifts are melted down.

I’ve never grafted anything in my life and am only just a very interested beginner in fruit trees……..but I feel like I don’t want to “waste” that stump if I could learn something new on it, in spite of no experience.

thanks for reading!
 
Sorry, can the moderator please put this in the fruit tree forum where I intended it to be……but screwed it up?
 
Why do you need to graft it? Won't it just sprout from the stump?
 
If the break is that high, then yes there is a good chance you will get it to throw some Honeycrisp shoots off of the trunk. If so clean up the break (cut it clean and smooth). You can always bark graft some scions into a portion of the stump just in case it doesnt throw some shoots. You should be able to find a bark graft video or 2 on YouTube. You can cut your scion anytime you want to before bud swell, but you wont want to bark graft until you see other apples breaking bud in the neighborhood of your stump. Bark grafts are pretty easy, just make sure it is secured in place well.
 
Thanks. Honestly, I asked because I didn’t know if a stump that big would throw useful shoots or not?

I did watch a couple more videos on bark grafting and decided I’m going to try it. Might even steal a couple of scions from my neighbors trees nearby.

I have a second leaf bare root Wolf River that I need to prune. Might try that too.
 
Get that cage back on her either way.....
 
It might push up some shoots from the rootstock below the old graft union too. Time will give you the answer, grafting the stump is an insurance policy - good advice from Turkey Creek too on the timing. I always sweat my root stock and I can tell you from personal experience about field grafting too early. You may have sprouts coming up this growing season to graft to next year as well so you not out anything trying.
 
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