[Wild Thing]

I will get some scion wood this winter, I will try this next spring. Can this be done to non fruit trees? Still do the video.

Not sure Mike, as my interest has been strictly with apple trees. Maybe somebody else knows??

 

[Wild Thing]

James P Bipps recently posted a thread asking about when is the right time to remove the grafting tape? Not much response and in my search I really didn't find anything definitive either so I decided to take a look at some of mine and see what they looked like on July 18th - 6-7 weeks after grafting. Some of the grafts are growing quite well and I knew I had wrapped the surveyors ribbon pretty tight on some of them.

Here is a cleft graft that looked to be healed up pretty well. I thought it maybe could use a little protection for a while longer so after I removed the surveyors ribbon I wrapped it with parafilm. From what I understand, the parafilm will stretch and eventually split before it chokes out the graft so I thought it would be safer than the surveyors tape.

I had lost a few of my grafts to what I thought may have been insects. On one of the grafts I found a couple of larva tucked in behind the tag end of a wrap. They appear to be dead so maybe they have been there since I sprayed the trees about 4 weeks ago. Not sure but I plan to spray the trees again today for a maintenance spray.

Some of these things have really taken off. These are nearly 2 feet long!

Others have not grown much but still appear to be healthy so hopefully they will catch up.

I went ahead and removed the surveyors ribbon on most all of them if they looked to be tight at all, and then gave them a couple of wraps of parafilm.

 

[Wild Thing]

The broken off tree had success with 4 of the 5 bark grafts but the surveyors ribbon looked particularly tight so I wanted to remove it.

This was a big stump to graft to so there were a lot of cracks and crevices exposed where I had split the bark to graft. I definitely thought I should keep those covered for a while yet so I just went ahead and wrapped them with some parafilm and will take another look at them in 2-3 weeks.

I don't want any birds trying to perch themselves on these young grafts so I put the cage back up around the tree. Also sprayed the grasses coming up around it again.

I am only going to want a single stem (or maybe 2) coming up from this stump but I am not yet sure when the others should be removed. Anyone have a recommendation?

 

[CHASINEYES]

James P Bipps recently posted a thread asking about when is the right time to remove the grafting tape? Not much response and in my search I really didn't find anything definitive either so I decided to take a look at some of mine and see what they looked like on July 18th - 6-7 weeks after grafting. Some of the grafts are growing quite well and I knew I had wrapped the surveyors ribbon pretty tight on some of them.

Here is a cleft graft that looked to be healed up pretty well. I thought it maybe could use a little protection for a while longer so after I removed the surveyors ribbon I wrapped it with parafilm. From what I understand, the parafilm will stretch and eventually split before it chokes out the graft so I thought it would be safer than the surveyors tape.

View attachment 555951

I had lost a few of my grafts to what I thought may have been insects. On one of the grafts I found a couple of larva tucked in behind the tag end of a wrap. They appear to be dead so maybe they have been there since I sprayed the trees about 4 weeks ago. Not sure but I plan to spray the trees again today for a maintenance spray.

View attachment 555953

Some of these things have really taken off. These are nearly 2 feet long!

View attachment 555955

Others have not grown much but still appear to be healthy so hopefully they will catch up.

View attachment 555957

I went ahead and removed the surveyors ribbon on most all of them if they looked to be tight at all, and then gave them a couple of wraps of parafilm.

View attachment 555959

Very nice! I have some with exceptional growth as well, while others have half or less. In my case the grafts at main branch terminal ends have the most growth. They have little to no competition.

 

[Wild Thing]

Very nice! I have some with exceptional growth as well, while others have half or less. In my case the grafts at main branch terminal ends have the most growth. They have little to no competition.

My grafts closest to the main branch also had the best success.

Have you removed the grafting tape on yours yet Chasineyes?

 

[CHASINEYES]

Only a couple cleft grafts. Peeled a little bark, but I think they will be fine.

Surprisingly, this Asian pear to wild pear bud wood scion took off. I remove most of the new growth below it in hopes it would get a little more kick. Plan to remove the tape soon.

 

[Wild Thing]

Graft looks good Chasineyes. Nice looking berries also!

 

[Wild Thing]

Just took a few photos of new shoots which grew right through the parafilm. I had wrapped the scion wood in parafilm when I grafted them to retain moisture. I really like what I am seeing. I had very good takes on those that were wrapped vs those that were not.

You can also see here where the parafilm is just separating itself from the stem as it grows. I like that - no need to worry about having to remove sticky tape or something that might choke the new graft.

Pretty amazing how these buds can just push right through the parafilm.

 

[Wild Thing]

I just went out and tried removing some of the lower shoots on the new grafts..

I just pinched them off between my finger and thumb nail and they came right off. I will continue to remove a few at a time every week.

Still have to remove the surveyors ribbon on this one but I'll wait another week or so as it doesn't seem to be hurting anything right now.

 

[Wild Thing]

My older apple trees were just loaded with apples last year and we didn't thin them out. Between the overload stress and the late frosts this year, they are not going to produce much this year. My younger trees, however, are producing very well.

I planted these Red Wealthy's in 2017 - 3 years ago. I have thinned dozens of apples off of them and those remaining are growing well. I am sure I will have to thin them some more or risk breaking branches under the load of heavy apples.

 

[Wild Thing]

Year end Update as of December 10th:

These are what the grafts looked like in July. This particular tree has been damaged by bears a few times and is not very healthy. Still...some of the grafts made it so I will go back to work on it this coming year. I actually grafted several different varieties on this tree.

The bark grafts I did onto fairly good sized branches did particularly well.

 

[Wild Thing]

By August some of the grafts had grown 3 - 4 feet!

I am really happy that I was able to save this tree which I originally planted in 2007.
I will remove 2 of the 4 new grafts in the spring. The new tree will be half Honey Crisp and half Red Wealthy.

I made sure to wrap the trunk with 1/4" hardware cloth in case the Voles go on a rampage this winter.

 

[Wild Thing]

The new shoots may be strong enough to survive if a large bird tries to perch on them but I will leave the cage in place just in case. In fact, I think I will replace this 4' cage with a 5 or 6 footer just to be sure. Would not want to lose this tree now.

The trunks of these Honey Gold trees which were also planted in 2007 are big enough now that I don't think the Voles will chew on them so I did not wrap them again with the hardware cloth. I had removed the old hardware cloth on these in the spring as the trees had outgrown them.

Most, if not all of the Honey Golds will be grafted with new scion wood in the spring in order to change up to new varieties.

 

[Honker]

Thank you for the updates, and your grafts look like they are taking well! Why are you going to top work over your Honey Golds to another variety? What varieties are you thinking? Just curious.

 

[Wild Thing]

They Honey Golds produce tons of apples every year usually. We just prefer many of our other varieties. I may leave one Honey Gold but I will convert the others to Honey Crisp, Red Wealthy and maybe Cortland - probably 2 or 3 varieties on each tree just to see what they look like

 

[Gamekeeper]

Well done!

Glad you could save the rootstock.
Be mindful of fungus.

I am grafting some better cider making varieties this spring.
My taster must be off, as I don't care for many of the popular eaters.

I'm using a white pvc wrap against the voles, with a 4" corrugated drain tile section as a mower guard

 

[Wild Thing]

Well...it is that time of the year again. A lot going on. Pulled the taps from our Sugar Maples, blew leaves off of the small wooded food plots and broadcasted some perennial clovers into them. I still have a little apple tree pruning to do and it is time to spray them with Dormant Oil spray but I needed to collect my scion wood for the 2021 Grafting Season. Fortunately, I wasn't too late getting out there to collect. The buds are all still very tight and should keep well in the barn fridge until it is time to graft them.

A friend of mine sent me some scion wood from one of his Crimson Crisp trees...

and I collected scion from another 8 varieties of my own trees. Should be good-to-go for this year.

 

[Wild Thing]

Update - June 30, 2025:

Here are some photos of the broken off tree that I grafted onto in 2020 - 5 years ago...

I will be getting some fruit from it this year for the first time. Can't tell yet if this is from one of the Honey Crisp or one of the Red Wealthy grafts but I will find out soon...

I have still maintained the 2 other grafts which I left to help keep the stump alive. I just cut them back every year. I probably should have cut the stump closer to the ground when I grafted onto it...

It is probably about 12 feet tall at this point and I don't want it getting any taller so I will likely head it back when it goes dormant. I do get a lot of suckers around the stump every year but I guess that is to be expected when you have only a small tree growing on an 18 year old root system? Still, I would have to call this effort a success.

 

[NonTypicalCPA]

Great update! I need to try this at some point. My grandfather was good at tree grafting.

 

[Wild Thing]

Update - August 30, 2025:

5 years later...and we have apples again!