Steve wrote:

enigma wrote:
my grandmother had a really wonderful crabapple at the back of
her garden in western NY. she died last year & now my aunt is
thinking of selling the house.
i want to know if i can get grafts of that tree & grow them
on an old, non-producing apple tree here in NH. if that's
possible, how much time do i have between cutting the scions &
grafting them to my tree? what time of year is best? is it
possible to just root cuttings from the crabapple? i probably
have a year or so timeframe to get this done.
lee

I just read all the replies to see if you got any good advice. Sherwin
speaks the truth. ;-)
I have ordered scion wood from several states away to graft on my trees.
I only have 4 apple trees but some of them now have several (up to 9 or
10) varieties grafted on different branches. Those scions come in a
padded envelope by regular mail. They may be in the mail system for 3 or
4 days at various temperatures. I get them into the refrigerator as soon
as they arrive and they are all fine.
I don't know if it's too late in western NY to take scions now or not.
If there is any green starting to show, it's too late. My trees are
quite dormant here with snow still covering the roots of some of them.
You want to graft a very dormant scion onto the new tree when it has
just started to grow.
The best scions come from last year's growth that has grown with vigor.
A water sprout would be perfect. Lacking that, the most vigorous new
growth tends to be at the top of the tree. I just collected 2 scions,
today, from my neighbor's old Cortland apple. No water sprouts and I
didn't have any way to reach the top so I finally found two twigs that
had grown about 4 inches last year. Not much vigor there but I bet they
will grow.
The best place to graft a scion onto is also a strong vertical growing
shoot. You need to get enough scions so that you can make AT LEAST a few
grafts on various places on the tree at your place. If even one grows,
you will then have you own source of scion wood in the future. Then you
can make more grafts later or buy a small tree or rootstock and make a
new tree.
If you missed the scion collecting season this year, you could try some
bud grafts later in the summer. I did some of those last summer. They
are not as much fun because I will not know if they worked until next
month when the tree wakes up. I have some scions from the same source
ready as a back up if they failed. I have virtually 100% success with
spring grafting of apples. I haven't done enough budding to keep score.

I thought bud grafting was not a good technique for apples. Are you
getting any takes with your budding of apples?


If you don't get anything going this year, get someone to cut some
scions next year about the beginning of March and put them in plastic so
they don't dry out in shipping. Zip lock bag, bread bag, whatever.
How much time do you have between cutting and grafting? The guy who
showed me how to graft (I most commonly do a simple splice graft ...
easy.) said he once kept some scions in the refrigerator for a year
finally grafting them, with some success, about 14 months after
collecting them. Not recommended! He dips the fresh scions in melted
bee's wax before they go in the refrigerator. I do that too. No need to
seal the new grafts that way.

You may not want to bother with wax, as some people do, but I think
masking tape is also not a good alternative. It is not waterproof, and
will
allow the graft union to dry out. I have been using a relatively new
product
called Parafilm, originally designed for medical use as a bandage. It
breathes
by also acts as a water shield. Some people use teflon tape, but that
doesn't
breath. Of course, you can't argue with success, so if you are getting
good
grafting takes with masking tape, I can't argue with that.

Sherwin

I just make the cuts, wrap masking tape
around the graft and wrap an ordinary rubber band around the tape to
keep the cut surfaces tight together.

I usually put the rubber band on first, and then cover with the tape. I
think
you can keep a better eye on the cambium allignment that way. Again, I
cannot argue with your success rate.

Get cambium of the scion in
contact with cambium of the stock and it will grow.
Oh, don't bother with cuttings. It's possible to do but it's not easy at
all with apples.

Steve in the Adirondacks of northern NY (about half way between western
NY and New Hampshire. ;-) )