Top worked an extra out of control apple tree this weekend…
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That’s not so bad! @TheDerek I’ve had ones that are so bad that frameworking was not an option!
Here’s a collection for you! All of those apple trees are frameworked except the cluster which is top worked. (I believe you’re using “top-working” the way @clarkinks and I would use “frame-working”)
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Not sure about the specifics but I graft after they break dormancy. I did one at that time and its doing well. Jujube are pretty easy to graft, in my experience.
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I’ve got higher success with interstems, nearly 100%. I grafted to my interstem, which I kept long 7+ inches, then grafted that to the rootstock, that way I didn’t disturb the first graft union while doing the second.
I didn’t do so many but here are some pictures.
This was even a chip bud grafted on an interstem. Later I pruned it off at the top of the chip bud and cut off all lower growth soon after this picture.
I think this tree is still alive in my sister’s swampy field/orchard.
This is also a usable method for putting chip-buds on large diameter trunks and by using an interstem.
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Now that’s a notion I had never encountered. Will bear it in mind should the need arise. (Along with a graft directly to a large chunk of root.)
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No, all of the grafted material is above the damage. There’s no way to save it by cutting it back.
I attempted a bridge graft. I wrote about it here:
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You know how to graft and have material, I’d cut it all the way down and graft it as low as possible and later bury the union since you don’t have a real rootstock anyway.
You should have everything back and more in 3 years, plus a better union.
Actually it’s not a “chunk of root”, it’s a log of rootstock from trimming back an untended apple tree with the rootstock suckers almost over taking the fruiting variety, and only some of them were cut low enough they had some root hairs on the bottom edges, but I think most of them did Ultimately sproit roots and survive, at least the one closest to my parents house did survive, but it was a double rootstock varieties, I actually wanted a Bud 118 tree, and wanted seedlings from that for rootstocks, an perhaps cider too.
The scion has extremely thin twigs. A beefy one is ⅛", 2-3mm. I’ve had my best grafting success when the scion and the stock are close to the same width, and the challenge in this particular case has been finding twigs on the stock that are thin enough for me to graft.
I tried some bud grafts, when i did the initial grafting, but i don’t think any of them took.
I ended up finding a long shoot from the rootstock (that was above the damage) and cutting it off and using it to attempt a bridge graft. Some of the paraffin at the top end has split, giving me hope that it might be callousing there. We’ll see.
If the top dies this year, and the scion tree survives I’ll try cutting it back and starting over next spring. (The scion parent was also girdled, but a large dead used-to-be-leader protected a strip of bark on the dominant leader, so it may survive. It’s growing in cracks in a rocky outpost, in the shade. Chunks of it die back every year because it’s essentially being bonsai’d.)
You must be hunting for scions wrong, you don’t need only tips, or maybe you’re collecting after bud burst?
This is an ideal piece here, but it should have been cut and refrigerated before bud burst, and many others will work, this is just ideal, and it still could work now, you just have to look for back up buds.
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That’s the one in my yard, in full sun, on what’s probably a more vigorous rootstock than its own roots. The parent tree has tiny skinny twigs.
And having never succeeded in grafting to a stump, I’m loath to cut down the tree right now to attempt it.
In happier news, the parafilm over the top end of the bridge graft is splitting. I think that end has calloused and has gotten enough wider that it split the parafilm.
If this survives, next spring i will definitely take some wood from it, instead of from the parent, and graft it to one of the new shoots coming from the base. I’ll probably try grafting about 3 shoots, and cut off the rest.
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