North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["D Stubbs" <dsmndel@gmail.com>]

My orchard is only just now old enough that I can decide  which varieties to re- graft ( top-work) to another variety. However one orchard that left and impression on me was during a Nafex tour in Minnesota (back when the annual meeting was in MN ) - we visited an orchard that was all being top worked. My memory was M26  rootstocked trees, about 8 years old with 3 scaffold branches. 
All three had been cut and 3 to 4 grafts per branch had been  implemented the year before,  they were then braiding the several new graft 'whips' together on each scaffold to keep them from being broken off by wind, and to eventually self-graft together into one branch. 
This over-grafting was better for the roots - giving more leaf to keep the roots going, and getting much larger eventual branches much sooner.
Del

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:04 PM, Tatum Stewart <tatum.stewart@tvgenvironmental.com> wrote:

I have a small orchard in Ashland City, Tn, about 20 miles northwest of Nashville, Tn.  I have a block of 50 red delicious trees on what I think is M7 root stock.  Trees are about 20 to 25 years old, and had not been trained well.  I began restoritive pruning 6 years ago and now have most of the (220 trees)orchard in production.  I do not like red delicious, and they do not sell as well as my other varieties.  So I am thinking about top-working these trees with some specialty varieties.  Does anyone have experience with this type of grafting?  My trees range from 13-17 ft tall.  Are they too large top work?  Would I graft the entire tree, leave one nurse branch, or only graft half the tree?

 

BTW:  MY gold delicious are outstanding!  They are nothing like a grocery store apple.  They are large, at least 1/2 pound each, thin skinned, crisp, syrupy sweet, with a spicy twang.  I sold out (30 bu) at the Nashville Farmers Market in one day!  I did have to convince people to try them first, as most had the usual impression of store bought golds. 

 

Thanks for any help

 

Tatum Stewart

Stewart Orchard

Ashland City, Tn

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