Grafting an old apple tree

 

Hello all,

We are moving house, and in our present garden is a very old gnarled
apple tree which produces a heavy crop of large blue green apples which
we harvest in November and use in late January through to late March
when they go yellow and ripen.  I would like to take this apple tree
with us and have a couple of questions about grafting.  All the pictures
that I can find of grafting show the scion as a last years shoot, about
as thick as or thicker than a pencil with shiny bark.  Our tree does not
have any like this.  The new shoots are very spindly, or contorted with
next years fruit buds.  Which would we be best way to take scions from
such a tree?  Does the scion have to be last years wood, or would an
older thicker branch be better?

The garden at our new house is big enough for a small tree (the parent
is about 5m high with a similar spread which would be too large).  Which
rootstock should I use for grafting, and where can I buy one from?  We
presently live in North Lincolnshire, and are moving to the Manchester
area, so a supplier nearby either who we could go to talk to would be
ideal.

Thanks for any advice,


Chris Potts

 


I would like to take this apple tree

pictures

Manchester

The grafting I've done (with supervision from someone who knew what
they were doing) was onto seedling apple trees that grew in spots
where I'd put "compost" (yeah I know "compost" is not supposed to have
viable seds in it but mine does).  I/we put on heaps of grafts on 2
such trees (maybe 20-30 grafts??? - around that number anyway) and all
but 1 graft took so I don't think that the source tree is all that
important so long as it's an apple (but maybe seedling apple trees are
tougher - dunno).

All the scions used for this grafting was the pencil sized green stuff
you describe.  Since you have no options with your tree, why don't you
take a variety of different scions and if you don't have a tree in the
new place big enough to use all the scions, buy a bigger tree or
perhaps two?

 


contorted

Thanks for clarifying that.  Stupidly I had assumed that the OP would
have the sense to find a suitable rootstock tree on which to do his
grafts.  I had assumed that since the OP wrote with some appearance of
knowledge on the subject he would understand from what I wrote that
any apple stock he could find would work given that I/we had used so
many differnt scions to graft to two absolutely indiffernt trees.
I'll try to be more careful in future.

 


Most of the grafting I've done used the type of scions you describe from
the books. You can encourage a tree to give such scions by very heavy
winter pruning, then summer thinning. But you need a year in hand for
that, it's too late in this case.

I have successfully grafted using 2 year scion wood - though I've not got
fruit yet. So I'd take some spindly stuff and some 2 year wood.


I'd recommend M26 as a root stock. It seems to do pretty well in the North
(I'm near Wakefield). I've bought bare rooted M26 root stock from Rogers
of Pickering

  http://www.rvroger.co.uk/

And I've rooted "suckers" from the root stock of my apple trees (M25
mostly).

Sorry I don't know any nearer to Manchester.

 

Chris Potts
Grafting can be done with fine twiggy material, if often takes readily,
just takes a little care to get them ro thicken up; it is best done
with last years wood; budding can be done with older wood but that is
not an option given your imenant move.
The Northern Fruit Group runs a free grafting courss for members at RHS
Garden Harlow Carr and in conjunction with the WI, at the Millenium
orchard in Beverley.  That is if you want to do it yourself.  The fruit
group have access to rootstocks.

If you want details let me know.

Alternatively if you want it done for you mail me off list and we can
sort something out

Regards
Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, South Yorkshire
(South Yorkshire rep for the Northern Fruit Group)