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To graft or not to graft, that is the question…

Derek Reese 29

Derek Reese 29

5 year old buck +
So I currently have 37 trees ( of 28 different varieties) in my tree/food plot, very few of which have fruited (oldest tree planted in Fall 2021). I need to do some pruning in the next few weeks. Is it worth it to save the scion from pruning and make several of my larger trees Frankentrees or just wait to see how they produce before I wield the grafting knife? Here’s a list of the trees I have:
10 point, 30-06, #5 Crab, Antonovka, Big Dog, Buckeye Gala, Crossbow, Droptine, Ed’s Crazy Crab, Eliza’s choice, Enterprise, Golden Hornet, Grey Ghost, Harrison, Hewe’s Crab, Jonagold, Macoun, Roadkill Crab, Ruby Rush, Sheepnose, Turning Point, Wickson, Wolf River.
Any combos you all would suggest (ie graft this to this?)
Note: not all the trees are big enough to prune yet…Just throwing some ideas around..thanks!!
 
Some of the trees you have listed are going to fruit pretty young like Droptine/Hewes/Roadkill/Golden Hornet, others will take up to 7-8 years or more like Grey Ghost/Sheepnose. So keep that in mind as you are grafting.
Grafting onto other trees can help you out if you lose the mother tree for any reason that way you will have back up scions later on if needed and franken trees are just cool. I like to take a pretty common tree like red or yellow delicious and graft into franken trees.
 
I would graft onto flowering crabs if you have any.
 
I have some older mature apples below my house that I had thought of grafting some crabs onto to get some more drop time variety…
 
chickenlittle said:
Instead of Frankentrees, buy a bundle of 50 or 100 rootstocks and get busy.
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My only issue there is I only have room for about another 10 trees after my spring is over and they are already planned out up to the spring of 2025….would love to learn to graft to rootstock..(probably should start with grafting scion to limbs as I had a colossal failure last spring in that regard…)
 
Derek Reese 29 said:
My only issue there is I only have room for about another 10 trees after my spring is over and they are already planned out up to the spring of 2025….would love to learn to graft to rootstock..(probably should start with grafting scion to limbs as I had a colossal failure last spring in that regard…)
Click to expand...
Impossible you don’t have enough room! Try harder and find more room! I’m voting with chicken little and buy 50 more rootstock and go to town!

I think bench grafting is easier than limb grafting myself.
 
I think H2O has a good idea, save some scion and graft onto the mature trees for a scion backup. Bark grafts and cleft grafts are a good way to get started.
 
Derek Reese 29 said:
My only issue there is I only have room for about another 10 trees after my spring is over and they are already planned out up to the spring of 2025….would love to learn to graft to rootstock..(probably should start with grafting scion to limbs as I had a colossal failure last spring in that regard…)
Click to expand...

You don't have to use exclusively large rootstock. You can get dwarfing rootstock and keep the trees trimmed small in order to have more trees in the same area. Some people even prune them down to a cordon in order to have higher production that's easy to harvest. You'd probably have to fence them off though.
 
Derek Reese 29 said:
My only issue there is I only have room for about another 10 trees after my spring is over and they are already planned out up to the spring of 2025….would love to learn to graft to rootstock..(probably should start with grafting scion to limbs as I had a colossal failure last spring in that regard…)
Click to expand...

always room for one more

bill
 
I should clarify..I have another acre or so in the field above my house (where my tree plot is already) but am trying to make that bedding cover and as a buffer between me and the neighbor..have some more spots in the front field but it is very wet (have 9 mature pears there that somehow thrive on little islands that are above the run off channels)
 
Not worth it in my opinion.
You only have room for another 10 trees you say, just buy time, the cost is relatively low, nursery trees will jump your orchard ahead years over waiting for grafted samples to catch up.
 
I may even pause to see which of the varieties do the best then fill in with 10 of the best growers/producers here in a few years..goal is to end up with ~5 dozen in the tree plot
 
You have alot of diverse trees there already. I dont see alot of trees for you though. I'd finish out what Terry has for good 2 legged apples like liberty, macintosh, fuji, and golden delicious.

Not seeing any early either. I have some pristine and redfree if you want some august trees next year.

Far as what you got, any trees you only have 1 of? Might be good insurance to graft a branch to other trees incase it dies or tips over. You probably got mostly B118.

One down side to these specialty deer trees is knowledge. Not sure what bloom group these are in. Maybe some early bloomers in a valley might not fruit too often. IT would be good to get some scions. Gala and jonagold are bloom group 4. Macoun is bloom group 3. Should be ok there.

Keep in mind protection when grafting. A bird might sit on a graft and wreck it. Keep the horizontal ones short. Maybe even brace it with another twig. I use doc farrels grafting seal. You can see the green paint marks for a few years, so you know which branch it is.

With mature trees at home, I graft a extra scion onto the water whips. IF I only want one or two trees of something, I got a spare if the graft fails. Trying this with mulberry trees this year. Got some zone 3 friendly northrup black mulberry for up north. Putting the leftover scions pieces on a branch. I got a apple with with signal fire, AWHO, crossbow, Dabinette, and Kerr on it. The ones grafted close to the trunk grew about 2 feet this past year. Got enough material for probably 5-7 trees on one scion planting. Some I can get 1 or 2 from what I put in. Bonus is that scion wood is about as fresh as it gets. No particular cold snap this winter either.
 
One good side to grafting is you get what you want. Buying trees can be a compromise at times. Sold out of a certain variety, or limited to what you can get locally. Just came in from pruning. I got some less desirable trees because they were on sale. Arkansas Black and Mcintosh are two I'd probably never graft, but saw them on sale. Looking closer into the Arkansas Black, it seems to be very heat tolerant , disease free except for scab, and holds onto the tree into winter.
 
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