North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran and Donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

I would also suspect the gunk you used, but I was not impressed with your
description of your rootstocks.
"an attempt to "top work" an
> ancient boundary row apple on growth perhaps an inch in diameter"

Unless you go for branches that are strong growing and get a good contact
and quick callus and chop off stronger branches, the tree may ignore your
graft and choose to grow some other branches.
'a number of whip-and-tongue ones on a lackluster red delicious"
If lackluster refers to it's growth rate,  it may not have been vigorous to
give a good take.

I myself used to get about 10% takes till T.O. Warren wrote a great article
on why grafts fail or succeed.  I realized that my girlish attempts to
whittle were not particularly at fault, instead the blame lay in  my
rootstocks which were often in poor condition (drought conditions 2 springs,
attempts at bench grafting another time, and one time some plums that had
dried out without my realizing it ).  Nowadays I want my rootstocks in the
ground and growing, and I tend to do bark brafts, chip budding, or even wait
to do splice grafts till the rootstock is actively growing.  I get pretty
decent takes these days, with topworking being the  situations where I most
often fail.  Donna