Grafting fruit trees

An apple tree is born

Here is a grafting story, not about vines for a change, but trees : It's been years I needed to find someone who could help me graft some fruit trees in the Loire. I had for example a relatively-young apple tree that almost died for some reason a few years ago and grew back from the rootstock (pictured on right), thus not growing fruits anymore. Or also greengage trees growing from a kernel fallen on the ground (fruitless as well even years later because ungrafted). This grafting was the result of a decision on a whim with a very narrow time window, you sometimes make great things this way, think for example of the composer Jerry Goldsmith who fathered the Love Theme for Roman Polanski's Chinatown, he had 10 days to compose it after initial composer Phillip Lambro was dismissed, and what a gem of a piece ! So whatever, I decided enough is enough, I needed to take things in my own hands, quickly browsing on the Internet for clues and tutorials and I found this very informative page with pictures about grafting olive trees in Israel by a young lady who grew up in a Kibbutz. The whole thing was simple enough for me, no wax or sophisticated technique, I felt I could do it and here is what I did this early 2020.

I began in january with a try, grafting two wood sticks I cut from an unattended apple tree along a side road (pictured on left). I occasionally picked these nice apples in autumn as the owners don't seem to care (some people in the countryside have gems and don't realize it, but at least they didn't cut the trees). Here is this first try made in late january (pictures below) with two wood cuts only, but Valérie, a young Belgian who lives nearby and is a passionate about nature and gardening told me that it was necessary to cut the wood one or two months before the grafting (like in january), keeping the wood in a humid place until the grafting day (like in march). The other thing she told me when she saw my pictures was that I took wood cuts that were too old : you need to cut the extremity of the wood that grew last year (like the 10 or 15 last centimeters). Anyway, we'll see, this first grafting try will maybe bear fruits as well.

The receiving tree

This grafting thing is just so wonderful : imagine you have an apple tree you're not satisfied with, unappealing fruits or else, you just have to find another apple tree you tasted and liked the apples of, cut a few 10-centimeter-long shhots at the end of a few branches and here we go, you kind of replicate your dream apple tree. I you (like me) are used to pick apples in a few abandoned orchards and spotted a few exceptionnal apple trees (usually from an old variety) it's kind of a miracle to just be able to reproduce them at will... You could even buy an apple tree in a Garden Center, plant it, and say, a year or two later, graft it with one of these old varieties you came through along a side roard or in a village. Doesn't it open up a vast array of opportunities ?
So this apple tree that grew back from its rootstock and doesn't bear fruit anymore, it has two trunks and I made my first january graft on one of them, here it is. I used one of my Japanese saws to cut it neatly (these saws are so thin that you get a very clean, spotless finish).

First cut

Then using a small thin knife you are going to make a two-centimeter cut in the bark, not very deep, just enough to cut the bark. Very easy you'll see.

Spreading the bark open

With the same knife, prepare the place where you'll insert the shoot : delicately spread open the bark from the trunk, making sure you don't harm the bark or detech it completely.

The shoots

Here are a few shoots I cut from an apple tree (not mine) a couple kilometers away and which I want to reproduce here because I liked its apples.

Cut the shoot anew

Then, grab the shoot or scion and make a sloping cut at its base so that you'll be able to insert it between the bark and the trunk. It is very importand to keep the bark on one side of the scion because from what I read the two barks will have to be in contact, and their exchange of information will allow the final tree to bear the right fruits.

Insert the scion

Then insert the scion delicately but firmly between the bark and the trunk, making sure thar the remaining bark on the scion is in contact with the one of the rootstock. Do the same on the other side of the trunk, you might insert 3 scions I think in this size of trunk.

Hold the whole thing tight

When it's done, take a piece of non-adhesive piece of platic around that part of the trunk to keep the scions tightly in place, use a small piece of tape at the end so that the plastic will hold. If you used an adhesive tape instead of simple plastic you'd risk ruining your work when you'll need to take the plastic away.

Protection tape

At the end, I just put a piece of tape to protect the exposed trunk from insects and rain, I don't know if it will help but I didn't have the special wax gardener use I think for this occasion. Now I just had to wait to see if the scion and the trunk connect appropriately and the sap flow gives a new like to the scion...

Stored scions

Here is where I stored the shoots or scions that I used for this march grafting. I had two such well marked storage places with scions sticked into a humid, rather shadowy place (one for apple shoots, the other for greengage). the cutting is ideally to be done in january and the grafting in march, that's why you must store the scions in between for the waiting interval. Don't mistake the apple shoots from the greengage shoots because you'll not have fruits if you mixes up...

Grafted greengage (grew out of a fallen kernel)

Other grafted greengage tree

Yet two other greengage that needed grafting

the apple tree

Here is the apple tree after the second course of grafting. I had to re-do the grafting on the right because I kicked accidentally the two scions out of their place when taking away the upper trunk of the left trunk. This way I grafted back the right way, with shoots of the last year (using the last 10-15 centimeters) that had been cut in january and stored in a cool and wet place.
Now all I need is cross my fingers and hope at least some of these scions will grow. I read somewhere that you can expect fruits in less years that if I had planted a young tree, we'll see.

End of winter is a lovely season

Comments

[William Schmitt]

Great info, thanks!
William