North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[derry&bill <wchase@interchange.ubc.ca>]

Tom,

I don't think so.

When I'm choosing scionwood, I avoid water shoots.

I also avoid new wood growing downwards, and laterally.

I try to find new wood growing at a 45-60° angle.

I think water sprouts have too much auxin and this discourages fruit 
buds at least for a few years.

If I were you I'd bend the branches of your non-flowering fruit tree 
perhaps to a 45° angle. This should slow down the sap and encourage 
flower buds to form.

Also make sure something else is not happening e.g. frost kill of buds, 
birds/bugs eating the flower buds, brief bloomtime and you didn't notice it.

You don't say how long ago you grafted the tree and what do you mean by 
a dwarf apple from a cow pasture? The seedling apple tree was a wimp?

If it was when you were new to grafting, maybe it was a pear seedling 
r/s, not an apple seedling r/s.

Derry


> Is a scion graft from a water sprout as fruitful as a normal growth scion?
>
> The tree did graft very oddly.  The scion grew in its diameter faster than
> the rootstock.  For example, the scion had a diameter of 1 ½”after two
> years, and the rootstock was only 1” in diameter.  It has balanced out now.
> > The rootstock was a dwarf apple from a cattle pasture.  It looked like an
> old, twisted apple tree, in a 3’ whip. 

> I did a simple splice graft, it being the first thing I ever grafted.  
>
> The scion was from an Improved Snow (local Fameuse variant) and it came from
> a circa 1918 standard sized tree.
>
> I know, I know…  Patience is the biggest step.

> Tom