Apples tree grafting: Multiple scions on first year rootstock

General Fruit Growing
21

Unfortunately not, I’ve asked all friends and family (and even most work colleagues) if they have an apple tree, without success…

I live in a city that can get pretty cold during winter, but on the whole is not considered traditional apple country for my region (Toowoomba, Qld, Australia, for those interested, most apple folk are in a more southern town called Stanthorpe).

If I was having this issue with plums, apricots, nectarines, or even cherries I’d be ok, plenty of trees around to frankentree for a year, but with pomme fruit I’m out of luck…

1 Like
22

Rootstocks all arrived (15x MM102, and 10x M27), as did all of my Scions:

M27 Grafts:

  • Huonville Crab
  • Andre Sauvage
  • Black Ben Davis
  • Red Gem
  • Golden Sweet
  • Devonshire Quarrendon
  • Calwells Keeper
  • Kingston Black
  • White Transparent
  • Xavier De Bavay

MM102 Grafts

  • King David
  • Prinzen Apfel
  • Huonville Crab
  • Baldwin x2
  • Jonathan
  • Antonovka Kamenichka
  • Pitmaston Pineapple
  • SG-001 (Ambrosia x ?, one of my own seedling trees)
  • SG-002 (same parentage as SG-001)
  • Redlove x ? Seedling (from an awesome aussie ebay seller)
  • Redlove x ? Seedling (I got two) & Eagle Point Star
  • Akane & Pine Golden Pippin
  • Winter Banana & Lady in the Snow

“Parked” on the SG-002 seedling: (I didn’t want to do it as the seedling is quite young, but sacrifices must be made, haha)

  • Starking Delicious
  • Baumann’s Reinette

Each was grafted using different grafts, as the situation called for it (I’ll edit the post to reflect what got what, when I find my notes), around the 20th of August (2021).
So far, I’ve got silver-tip for the Huonville crabs and the Red Gem, and proper bud break on the Pitmaston Pineapple.

I put together a tool to help me track them: Orchard tracker
Side note: If folks think that might be of use to them, let me know and I can open it up for others to use as well! It allows you to input when a plant leafs out/flowers/shows fruitlets/is ready to pick, expected chill units and stuff.

I’ll keep everyone appraised in the coming months as to how each graft fairs!

2 Likes
23

That orchard tracker looks useful and easy to use. Is there a way to enter dates, especially on blossoming and harvest? Or maybe spread it to weekly entries in busy months.

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I was thinking of something like this too, but ended up going with months because it was a lot easier to code, haha.

I reckon I’ll make the switch to dates, and look into how to visualise it.

25

Posting here for completeness, but I’ll probably make a thread for it too: I’ve done some work on the backyard orchard tracking idea and have this: https://orchardtracker.com
Lets you track plants day by day, for when they have leaves (if deciduous), when they have flowers, when fruit starts forming and when it’s ready to pick.