New member here - I found this site while I am trying to learn more about grafting fruit trees. I’ve ordered a few varieties of apple scions for delivery in March, and intend to graft them onto one of my existing apple trees - I have two, both are dwarf, one is male one female - the female produces nice yellow apples of uncertain lineage - seemingly every other year? or maybe every other year I am losing the crop due to a late Ohio frost?
The male of course does not produce fruit.
Anyway. My dumb question is - can I graft the scions onto the male tree? Or should I only graft scions onto the Female tree?
Thank you for that, Smsmith. So what I think is a male tree is likely a tree that lacks a compatible cultivator? And so it would be a fine candidate for grafting?
For the male/female question research “monecious vs dioecious”.
For the cropping every other year one “biennial” or “biennialism”.
Instead of “cultivator” perhaps you meant “pollenizer” (often mis-stated as “pollinator”). Which could be an issue if there are no other apple trees or crabapples within a mile(?) or so.
Otherwise, a “frankentree” (many other names commonly used for) can be created at will. Essentially any apple scion (just a cutting of young wood from an existing tree) can be grafted onto a limb of any apple tree. Having 2 (or more, perhaps lots more) cultivars (varieties) on a single tree is common, especially if space is limited.
Hello! I just learnt grafting and had my first successes this year after a failed year prior to that. Let me know if I can help with anything, from a newbie perspective.
For the male/female question - I am not an expert but I don’t think apples do that. There are typically 3 types of apple trees: self-fertile apple that can pollinate itself or others; regular apples that need to be pollinated by others; triploids that need to be pollinated by others but are incapable of pollinating others (so you would need at least 3 trees).
To add to that, there are also flowering groups - they need to have overlapping time when they bloom.
I don’t know - I wasn’t paying attention - it has not born fruit in the 4 years I’ve been in this house, these apple trees were here when I moved here, and I’ve not paid much attention to them - a friend trimmed them for me two years ago, his trimming opened them up and that year the one tree had a nice crop. The other has never had fruit. I like to garden but have never had fruit trees so I am a complete newby. Recently retired and time on my hands so I am trying to learn.
I don’t have much space with good all day sun in this suburban 1/3rd acre lawn, which is why I was so taken with the idea of grafting onto my existing trees. And especially I was hoping to graft onto the one that has an established healthy root stock that has not been producing fruit.
They’re your trees, you can do whatever you want with them
You are 100% certain they are both apple trees, correct? A couple pics may give folks the ability to offer better advice
Never fear. Grafting a scion onto a tree lacking a pollenizer is a great way to give it one. Helps to know what variety apple it is to ensure it is compatible though. There are many excellent crab apples that can do that for you.
Chestnut, Indian Magic, Indian Summer and Plum leaf crabs are all superb general pollinators. Running from order of early, medium and late ripening.
Those are young trees. It could just be the rootstock they are on. Seedling rootstock can take 10 or more years to fruit. I believe we have posters who have M111 trees that took that long.
thank you, though I cannot claim credit - my friend pruned them last summer, they looked much better when he was done. They probably should be pruned again. And sprayed in the spring? Dormant oil or something. I need to figure that out, too!! I don’t know ANYTHING.
It’s good someone knows what they are doing, haha, I am clueless, but I try to make up for my lack of knowledge with enthusiasm.
I am so glad I found this board, what an amazing resource. I just spent a fun hour over on SkillCult’s Patreon site, I signed up for his blog - I wish I’d known about this board before I ordered my scions from Fedco - I spent a long time on the Fedco site, selecting scion varieties to order - I ended up with one each of
868A — Cox’s Orange Pippin Apple,
7878A — Frostbite Apple
7892A — Honeycrisp Apple
7946A — Twenty Ounce Apple
I thought Fedco had an interesting list of choices - then your board introduced me to SkillCult. Oh My… Amazing.
Check out Cummings nursery for Scion wood too they have great descriptions and will point out disease resistance. It’s an important factor that most newbies skip. Honeycrisp and COP can be difficult from a disease and pest management standpoint.
