Did some bud grafting on my apple tree today, with Step by Step directions.
I've always wanted to do a bit of grafting on my apple trees to increase the diversity of apples I can get. I've lost a few trees over the years as well and I think this is a great way to hedge my bets as well.
Yesterday I hosted a bud grafting tutorial and workshop at my orchard. It was run by my friend who sells most of the hardy trees here in our city. I've had the lesson before but it's always great to see it again and reinforce the learning. So today I went out and tried the process and going to share it with everyone here.
The first step is finding a good bud from the donor tree. You are looking for a large bud at the base of a leaf on 1 year old growth. So new growth from this year. This type of grafting is done in late summer. In the photo the buds you see are still quite small, but I was eager to give it a try.
Next you'll shave the bud off, and also remove the leaf. So your left with just a very small shaving off wood with the leaf stub, that mostly just serves as a handle.
Next you find a location on the recipient tree. It needs to be grafted onto 2 year old growth. So you'll want a branch that's close enough to the main tree or off a large branch that you plan to keep of course. On the branch you make a small straight cut parallel to the branch, then a small T-cut at the end of that. You just want to cut below to exterior bark and not into the wood. Then you gently force the bark open to create a small area to receive the graft.
Next you slip the bud into the small opening you made. You don't need to wedge it deeply in or anything and want it to meet the end of the T.
The last step is to just affix the graft. There are lots of options for this, from glues to pastes and waxes. The guy who taught the lesson, just uses a regular elastic wrapped tight. He's had great success over the years doing it this way and it's free so likely how I will continue.
I'll be watching the orchard close over the next few week for the buds to swell a bit more and conditions to be a bit more ideal then I'll be doing much more grafting in my orchard and searching the city for some scion wood.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my little lesson.
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very cool post man, wish more people would post intelligent posts about gardening and less retarded memes
Thanks man, it's really appreciated. Often times I wrestle with taking the time to make a good post vs just posting crap, but comments like this help to keep my commitment to trying to create some good content.
Have't tried grafting ourselves but I think the apple tree we got was grafted to begin with as the original part started growing out recently and we have two different looking tree bits coming out of hte same thing. That last image did remind me of how I "fixed" the mulberry tree though, we had a pine tree removed from the side of the ouse and the tree loppers accidentally dropped it onto the mulberry tree while trying to avoid the house. I taped the tree back together at where it broke off including a little sling to hold it up onto the branch while it was sealing. My partner wasn't sure it would work but the branch reattached and all was good.
Hope your grafts take :)
Guys whats grafting gonna do? Looks interesting. My garden is dead. So Im thinking maybe i go for trees?
The grafting let’s you have two varieties of apple on the same tree and they can also cross pollinate themselves. It saves room than growing 10 trees I can grow 5 trees that all have 2 types of apples. It’s mostly just a novelty though, unless your doing it because a certain tree isn’t hardy for your zone.
I’ve had great success splinting quite a few trees back together, we’ll done with yours ryivhmm
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This would come in handy because you need two different types of apples to be able to pollinate correct?
I think I will try this with my avocado - if it recovers from the morning glory attack.
great post!
You are right that you can create a self pollinating once you have a large enough portion of the new tree growing. It really is a lot of fun to do.
I have no idea how this tree is still living and producing apples. It has been like this for about 3 years. There is no center of the tree only bark.
Interestingly the bark is the only part alive on the tree. The center is not longer living or needed. Just for support, you could stake it if it needs some help.
Otherwise your tree needs some serious pruning from what I can see.
Interesting, however, not quite accurate. The three layers under the bark are the living parts. Cambium is the center layer. The layer on the outside of the cambium is phloem, which transports materials produced by photosynthesis from the top to the roots. When the phloem dies it becomes bark. The inside layer is called xylem. It's purpose is to transport water from the roots to treetop. When the xylem dies it becomes wood.
The tree belongs to a lady I work for. She never believes the tree will still be standing to the next season, but it does. We had such sever heat this summer most of the apples are burnt.
I guess your right, a real tree expert man! Still a very impressive tree.
woman, that's ok everyone makes that mistake. I looked it up because I got to thinking about trees that you debark like eucalyptus and such. So, if bark were the only living part then you would kill it.
With all the gophers on the property, I am surprised anything is standing!
insane.. .. that actually works huh! :D
Yeah. I'm always amazed by some of the cool things you are able to do with trees.
Our property is part of a massive abandoned apple orchard. Those old trees must have roots to China, one of these days I want to try grafting some new babies onto those. Thanks for the nice tutorial!
My pleasure, It would be a great way to invigorate some of the old trees with well established root systems.