Time for some grafting

Apple buds are barely beginning to swell. Two weeks ago I cut some sticks from my Dad's 2 apple trees, which I wanted to use for scoins to add to a dwarf apple in my yard. Last year, I used some branches of a neighbor's apple tree, which overhangs into my yard. As I remember, I grafted about 10 or 12 scoins onto branches of a 5 year old ultra dwarf (M27) Golden Delicious, which had never borne fruit. Of those attempts, 2 grafts definitely took, 2 more might have (the buds that grew are right at the grafting point, and I cant tell whether they are from the original tree or the graft). I used the reverse saddle graft method as shown in the video below. The reason for using that method is that, for a novice like me, it seemed like the easiest to cut and match the grafts.

Yesterday I made 20 small grafts onto the tree from my Dad's 2 apple trees. Unknown variety, he thought one might be a Delicious. Unfortunately, they had a day-long trip at room temp to get here, so may not be viable. The cambium layer was green and soft, so still worth a try. I may also have made a mistake, tying the graft together with dental floss, which I learned from a rose-grafting video. They are covered with teflon plumbing tape. We'll see.

Here is the result of my first attempt at grafting, 2 Springs ago. A a complete novice, I just cut the scion and base tree stems to match, tied them together with electrical tape, and that's it. This was the only attempt at the time. It grew that summer, and last summer. Looks like there might be a flower bud at the tip. I don't know the scion variety. The main tree is Liberty on M27 ultradwarfing rootstock.

Here is one result from last Spring, grafting from neighbor tree prunings for scions, onto Golden Delicious on M27. This scion grew like crazy, adding branches and about 16 inches of growth. One branch might have a flower bud.

Here is the other definite 'take' from the neighbor tree onto the Golden Delicious. Again, it grew well. The tip was frozen, so I pruned it back a little. It won't bloom this Spring but should grow as well as any other branch. This may be a tip-bearing, rather than spur-bearing, variety, so I don't want to get carried away with too many grafts.

Here is the final result. A bit odd looking. I'm thinking that I'll need to remove the wrappings in about one month. By then I hope to know if they 'took'.


Reverse saddle grafting multiple varieties onto an apple tree:

Oldie, The Garden Song

Chorus:
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Til the rain comes tumbling down

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones,
we are made of dreams and bones
I feel the need to grow my own cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain I'll find my way in nature's chain
Tune my body and my brain to the music of the land

Chorus

Plant your rows straight and long,
Temper them with prayer and song
Mother earth will keep you strong if you give her love and care
An old crow watching hungrily from his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free as that feathered thief up there

Chorus

Rootstocks

Looking into backyard orchard culture information, I want to keep track of my rootstocks. I'm not sure if this information will be useful, but if I don't put it here, I wont have it. This information is not available for most of our existing trees, unless I kept the labels somewhere. Here are a few that I found:

Hollywood Plum - Marianna 2624
Shiro Plum - Marianna 2624
Surefire Cherry - Gisela 5
Combo Asian Pear - OHF97

Prior trees, if current catalog info is still correct -

El Dorado Peach - Lovell
Tri-Lite Peach-plum - Lovell

I have recepits that show:

Liberty Apple - M27
Jonagold Apple - M27
Garden Gold Peach - Lovell
Flavor Delight APrium - Citation

According to Raintree, Lovell is a "seed-grown standard peach rootstock has proven dependable and may develop a longer lived tree with better disease resistance and hardiness than other peach rootstocks. " Dave Wilson Nurseries states that Lovell is "slightly more resistant to wet conditions than Nemaguard but prefers well-drained soils, slightly more resistant to bacterial canker than Nemaguard" but also "susceptible to root-knot and root-lesion nematodes and to oak-root fungus, some what susceptible to bacterial canker"

According to fruitforum.net, Gisela 5 is a rootstock of choice for growers and makes a compact tree for gardens, although that information referred to sweet cherries.

According to the Dave Wilson Nurseries label, Citation"Resists root-knot nematodes. Induces heavy bearing at a young age. Trees on Citation may be held to any desired height by summer pruning"

As for the Marianna, Dave Wilson Nurseries states "slightly dwarfing, moderately resistant to Phytophthora crown and root rot and oak root fungus, tolerates wet soils, root-knot nematode resistant" but tends to lean, shallow roots the first few years, very susceptible to bacterial canker... susceptible to crown gall..." Raintree states "It will produce a semidwarf tree maintained from 10 to 15 feet tall. It does very well on wet soils and tolerates a variety of soils. It is compatible as an understock for plums, peaches and some almonds and apricots."

Dave Wilson Nurseries states that OHF-97 "...vigorous, widely adapted, disease-resistant. Winter hardy, tolerant of wet soils."

More Fruit Tree Orders

Uh Oh....

Last weekend I looked online at Raintree Nursery again. Decided to order two additional trees to grow, using the backyard orchard culture method:

Surefire Cherry. I was thinking about my parent's cherry tree, and realized that I haven't had a pie made from sour cherries for about 30 years. Being into "slow food" - you can't get much slower than starting out with the a small, bare-root tree. OK, you could plant a seed to grow the tree, but I'll be dead before I get cherries from a seed-grown tree. Tree should be here in 1-2 weeks. The 'ideal location' in the backyard was occupied by a rose (Carl Brunner), so yesterday I dug it up and moved it a few feet to the former location of "Angel face", which did not survive the winter and has now joined other Angels in heaven. Well, actually, in compost, but it sounded nice. The location is ready, I added some chicken compost, and will add some eggshells when planting the tree. Some thought actually went into this selection: It blooms later than other cherries. Late frost has been a fruit-tree nemesis, so the later flowering is a bonus. Most sour cherries, including this one, are also self-fertile, so no pollinator variety is needed. They stay fairly compact, especially compared to sweet cherries, so the pruning might be easier as well. IT's on Gisela5 rootstock.

I DID say two trees. I've been developing a taste for asian pears - they are crispy like apples, but have more flavor, like pears. Not enough room for more than one, and most asian pears need a pollinator, so I ordered a multigraft Asian Pear. I won't know the 3 varieties until it arrives. It will be all but one of:

Shinseiki (medium to large, sweet, yellow fruit, late August).
Yoinashi (medium to large, russeted, butterscotch flavor).
Hamese (mid sized, sweet, yellow fruit, mid August).
Mishirasu (large, russetted fruit, late September).

They can't say which if the 4 is missing. If I could pick, I would go for the two sweet yellows and either of the russetted, but any combination is OK with me. Planning for this to go into a front-yard border, possibly in the location of the opuntia (winter did a job on that one too) or eucalyptus (also a winter victim - there is a trend here). I'll have to look at the site from multiple angles to scope out the optimal location.

We already have a multigraft European pear and a multigraft sweet cherry. Some authors are not crazy about multigraft trees, since some varieties may be more vigorous than others, but my feeling is that for trees that need pollinizers, it's a way to achieve that need in one tree. Plus, judicious pruning can keep the most vigorous in check and allow the other varieties some space as well. I've added a couple of unknown variety grafts to the dwarf apple trees, last year. If we are very lucky, they'll bear this year.

Temperature Jan and Feb 2009

Keeping track of temperature so that NEXT YEAR when I'm wondering "was it this cold/warm last year?" I can look back and see what it was like. Excel makes for easy to read graphs, here are the highs and lows for Jan and Feb.