North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>]

Hi Andre,

I have had mixed results doing this.  The earliest I got fruit was the 
following season with one
large apple appearing.  The following season it produced no fruit.  I 
was doing whip and tongue
for this top working.  My most spectacular success was grafting a NY 
1502 plum onto a Stanley
Plum tree.  That graft started producing plums one year after the 
graft.  Now, after a few years,
the original Stanley Plum branches died from Black Knot and the NY 1502 
has replaced it with
numerous branches and gives several quarts of plums every season. 
Overall though, I don't
feel there were enough returns for the amount of work I put in.  I now 
have several such grafts
sitting there for a couple of years now that are producing no apples.  
It's still fun to try.

                               Sherwin Dubren

On 9/24/2014 3:24 PM, Andre Pierre wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm thinking about top-working a mature crabapple tree in my backyard with 
> two or three domestic apple varieties.
>
> I have never done this, but have a good idea how to proceed.
>
> One thing I'd be curious to know is how long its likely to take until the new 
> apple branches bear fruit (assuming the cleft grafts take, of course)
>
> Any observations or comments would be be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance, and best regards.
>
> :-)
>
> Andre