North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Andre Pierre <hello@protocol6.com>]

Hi all and happy Spring!

A follow-up question about top-working crabapples....

---

So I've done my top-working of a nice mature crabapple tree in a sunny 
location via rind grafts.
The 3 (out of 6) branches I worked on had suffered snow damage so replacing 
them was necessary anyway, and I'm looking forward so see what will happen 
with the grafts. 
I left 3 other branches as sap-drawers. These are 2-3" in diameter and quite 
long.

Here is my question:

I have s few small pieces of scionwood left, too short for rind or cleft 
grafting, but I thought perhaps I could bud-graft a few scion buds onto the 
sap-drawer branches, just to see what will happen.

I know that budding is usually done in the summer, but is it reasonable to 
expect that a bud graft is likely to work in the early season?

I figure worst case the scion-buds don't grow.

Any thoughts, opinions or comments welcome.

Thanks in advance,

:-)

Andre



On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 04:24:22PM -0400, 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
> 
> -- 
> "The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltair

-- 
"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he 
does to the web, he does to himself." - Chief Seattle