I recently top worked a large, old apple tree. When I cut the old tree’s top off, I took it down to a point that was about 4 feet above the ground. Rather than cut it back to the one main trunk, I cut it off at a point where it had just separated into 3 major limbs, each one being about 6-10 inches in diameter, thereby leaving 3 main “stumps” that I could bark graft scion to.
I attached about 4-5 scion to each stump and almost all of them took. I have been thrilled over the last 3 months because of the extremely healthy looking, fast growing success of my grafts. HOWEVER, I am starting to worry and there does seem to be a problem. The problem is that even though the grafts look healthy and have put on incredible growth (many of them are 4 feet long or more!) many of them just don’t seem to be attaching themselves permanently to the tree itself.
I’m not sure of the terminology, but a few (maybe 4 out of 18) of the scion have created a big “calloused” area which, to my untrained eye, appears to be how all the grafts SHOULD look. These few have a big “knot” of wood at the point where it is attached to the tree. This “calloused” area is large enough that the bark over it has split a bit because of the large size of the growth knot. When you wiggle these few scion that have the big knots they feel very sold and there is no movement at the point where it is attached to the tree. In short, it seems to me that these few are behaving properly, formed strong bonds, etc. But the others- which is the vast majority of my grafts- appear to not be progressing well at all.
TO be clear, my concern is about their attachment to the tree and the fact that there seems to be very little growth or “callousing” (don’t know the right word) to attach the scion to the tree. But the scion itself is extremely healthy and long and looks good in all other aspects. But when you wiggle them, its easy to see that they have little - if any- permanent attachment to the tree. In fact, I have had 2 come completely off during windy periods, and when I looked at the scion where it was in contact with the tree, there was almost nothing to show that it had grown into the tree. No “knot” or calloused area or anything else to show that it had actually grown onto the tree- neither on the side that touched the tree or the side that touched the bark (remember, these were bark grafts that were originally placed between tree and bark of tree). I know I can (and should) brace the scion to prevent breakage due to wind, but I feel strongly that there is a problem with the scion attaching to the tree.
It has been 3 months and 1 week since I did the grafts, and from what I’ve read it seems like that should be long enough for a fairly strong connection o have ben made. Yet most of mine seem to have made none. I originally used a piece of rope to put around the top of the “stumps” and hold the scions tight under the bark (where most people use tape) and that rope is still in place and seems to be the only thing holding the scions in place! I’d like to remove it as I think it could be part of the problem, but if I do I am almost certain that most of my grafts would either fall off or come loose in the first breeze that comes by.
SO what say you all? Perhaps I’m just rushing things and everything is ok??? This is my first graft so I have no past experience to compare to. The fact that the scions are growing so fast and look so healthy would seem to be a very good thing and may well indicate that there is no problem. But seeing those few that have bonded so well and created big “knots” of growth and feeling how solidly they are attached leaves me feeling something must be wrong with the others. BUT WHAT??? Please offer any ideas or insights or suggestions about what’s going on and/or what I should do to encourage growth. One thing I am considering is cutting the tips off the scion so they won’t continued to grow into these 4-5 ft long, thin sticks but instead might focus their growth elsewhere- like at the graft point! It also might encourage a more bushy tree it the future instead of a tree with a few really long, straight limbs going straight up (like a pear). But I don’t know. WHEW! That’s more detail than you needed, but I wanted to be thorough. Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations.
BTW, here is a link to my original post of this project, which includes photos of what I did originally…in case that helps you understand what’s going on.
