sherwindu wrote:
Steve,
Are you on any kind of spray schedule? If not, it is just asking for trouble. I have
heard people say it is hard to grow Honeycrisp, and they are susceptible to disease,
but I have had no trouble with mine. With your kind of problems, I would be suspicious of a problem
with watering, fertilizing, etc. Are you having problems with
all your fruit trees, or just the ones you mentioned? You might be better off just buying a small
Honeycrisp on dwarfing rootstock, and go from there. I have been able to make several apple trees
grafting them onto rootstock. However, my success rate with grafting apple scion onto an existing
tree with say a bud graft, have
been very poor. Might be my technique, but I have much better luck doing that kind
of grafting on plum and peach trees.
You don't mention what kind of trees you are grafting onto. Is it possible that you
are getting fruit from a branch of the original tree, and not the scion? Check the
graft again to confirm that it is really coming off the scion.

Sherwin D.

Well, you're right about the first thing. My spray schedule is hit or
miss at best. I only have 4 apple trees and two of them have multiple
grafts. I haven't been very serious about them in the last few years.
Every year I intend to be good and follow a reasonable spray schedule
but the first thing I know, other things have taken priority and I've
let pests get established. I am very aware that this is a problem.

My other fruit trees have done well over the years but you have to
remember that I live in a location where the winters are quite severe.
Several nights in the minus 30s is normal and minus 40 isn't all that
rare. Dwarfing root stock is best avoided. My plum trees are several
years old and are declining now. I actually didn't get any plums this
year. I have grafted a couple of young plum trees which should come into
production, maybe next summer.
As far as watering and fertilizing... Watering is rarely required. Rain
just comes and the grass is good and green all summer. Fertilizing is
what ever the lawn gets which isn't much. Grass clipping mulch around
each tree. If anything, my trees put out growth that is a little too
vigorous. In contrast to the inedible Honey Crisp apples, I got some
really nice Red Baron apples this fall. Big, beautiful, perfect and
quite edible. Some were from one of the trees that also has a Honey
Crisp graft.

By the way, there's no doubt about the grafts. I know exactly where they
are and they are tagged too. My multiple graft trees are on edible
apples that are extremely hardy. One is on Rescue apple crab (a small
but very edible apple) and the other is on a Norland (which by the way
has Rescue as one of its parents).

Steve in the Adirondacks of northern NY