Hi everyone, thanks to all for creating such a great forum and community My name is Mike, I just moved into my first house last year and am hoping to start doing some fruit growing this year (and hopefully every year!)
I have a question which probably seems very amateur to everyone here, but I have found it difficult to find information on. Is it possible to graft a scion onto a branch which itself is already a graft? I have an espaliered pear and apple (one of each) and am wondering whether I could graft to extend the espalier? For example, if you think of a T shape, whether I can extend the arms of the T by grafting onto them? If this is possible, does the rootstock still confer all traits to the “tertiary” graft? Thanks!
Welcome Mike!
Yes, you can keep grafting on grafts!
However it is unlikely the rootstock will have all the traits conferred to the secondary graft. How much influence the rootstock has on the secondary and tertiary grafts will depend on a number of things including the length of the inter stem.
It is actually a good thing that rootstock influence will not proceed all the way to the secondary graft in many cases. In some cases there may be graft incompatibility between the rootstock and the material you wish to graft. So you can use an inter-stem to bridge that incompatibility. This is how you get these multiple stone fruit in 1 single tree – Cherry, Almond, Peach, Plum etc. all growing on one tree.
One thing to keep in mind if your tree is already both apple and pear is those two are not generally graft-compatible with each other, and they require what’s known as an “interstem” in order to graft onto each other. The “Winter Banana” cultivar is usually used as the interstem because it is an unusual apple that is graft-compatible with pears. An interstem is basically what you’re asking about, putting a graft on top of another graft in order to connect two things that otherwise aren’t compatible.
So, if you add new varieties, you probably need to add only apples to the apple side and pears to the pear side.
Sorry to clarify – I have an espaliered apple and espaliered pear, one of each. Edited original post, thanks for bringing that up. That is good to know about the Winter Banana.
Hi Mike. What you’re describing is not uncommon. After all, your named apple or pear variety is already a graft on a rootstock chosen for certain attributes -size, disease resistance, anchoring, etc. “Frankentrees” might have a couple of dozen or even more varieties scattered about a single tree. Sometimes it’s not that easy to manage but it is definitely done.
Some “fruit salad trees” use a common root stock such as Marianna with several varieties budded to the main stem of the root stock, if I understand correctly. But I have a prune plum tree that seems to be accepting apricot grafts and buds, and I have a prune plum grafted onto Nanking cherry root that I’m trying to stick apricot on.
Grafting by itself will not automatically cause the branch to elongate more than it would have before grafting.
The only possibility I can think of is to take a scion from a more vigorous cultivar whose growth would then perhaps surpass the growth of the original branch.
Right. In this case, some of the espaliered branches were already cut off when I got it, so I’m wondering if I could use a cleft branch to elongate in the right direction.
My name is Mike, I just moved into my first house last year and am hoping to start doing some fruit growing this year (and hopefully every year!)