Would grafting be a good idea?

[j-bird]

I am not experianced in grafting at all, but I have 6 different apple trees on my place in an effort to get different drop times. I was thinking that it may be in my best interest to mix these varieties via grafting. Is this a good idea? What is the best method of graftingfor a rookie like me to try? Trees where 3 gallon box store specials and have been in the grond now for 2 years - some tried to produce fruit last summer -I stoped them as the tree would not have been strong enough to support fruit and I wanted the tree to focus on physical growth.

 

[greyphase]

Learning to graft is always a good idea. I seem to have a couple of extra thumbs and the whip and tongue graft while beautiful and the most popular is tough for me so I have been using the cleft graft with good success. I learned watching You Tube videos. Here are my favorites.

Line up your cambium layer and wrap it to keep it from drying out and you'll have success.

Rick

 

[Turkey Creek]

So you have 6 apples in a centralized location? Or you have 6 individual apples growing at different locations on your property? If they are in a orchard setting then probably no reason to graft one to another. If they are scattered then there would be some benefit. Grafting is not overly complicated and should be on your list of green thumb skills regardless.

 

[CrazyEd]

Grafting is a great idea. I just updated my Grafting Adventures thread with some pictures. Check it out.

 

[j-bird]

I have 2 small groups of three trees in each (all are of different varieties) - this is why I thought grafting different varieties would be useful. I also thoght it would give me some insurance should I loose a tree. I will check out Ed's "adventures" as well. I think Ilik the "simplicity" of the cleft graft, but I am not sure I have large enough branches. Can I try to cleft graft 1 to1 on branches that are of similar size, instead of 2 to 1 like most suggest?

 

[greyphase]

Yes you can graft one scion per branch. Here's a pic of an Antonovka seedling apple tree that I grafted Enterprise scionwood to this spring. Although I used 2 pieces of scion on the main trunk you can see the other branches have one piece of scion per branch.