My first graft ever!

How am I doing? Please let me know what you think.
They are still in a bag. :slight_smile:

Got Fuji and Honeycrisp Apples from big box store and whip grafting them on the trunk.

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They look nice and tidy. Good work!

Iā€™m used to seeing the wrap extend further down the trunk and often covering the scion completely, but that might not matter here. One thing Iā€™d keep an eye on is how much overlap the two pieces have on each other. In other words, the longer the cut part of the pieces is then the better. Put yet another way, you wouldnā€™t generally try to join two square pieces- you want as much contact as possible. So in this case leave them wrapped as long as possible to make sure the graft heals thoroughly, since yours appear to me to be a little on the short side. But if you got the cambia well joined they will do fine, I think.

Just my two bits worth- others may have other views!

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Depending on your weather and warmth,they should start growing in a few weeks.
I donā€™t grow Apples,but most of my bench grafts are started with a shorter root stock.Was there a reason yours were started high like that,maybe to keep animals away later? Brady

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Hi Brady,

Thanks. I got these in the store they already grafted to unknown rootstock. I only grafted the top to each other to make them ā€œ2 in 1 apple treeā€. I believe the rootstock graft union is inside the bag, however i have not opened the plastic bag yet.

Thanks Mark. This makes perfect sense.

Do you think I should plant the tree first before I graft?

I donā€™t want to burst your bubble, but unless Iā€™m missing something how will this make this a two in one fruit tree? Unless you have a branch or more that come up from the bottom 8 inches, you only created on interstemā€¦

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Oops. I am not sure.

However I did make sure the bottom 16 inches have viable bud on the whip. I also picked the tree with smaller diameter in the bin. Will that give me more chance?

Thanks

Great job! You have got to start sometime. Might as well try something grafted on a easily bought tree you buy down the road. Very good idea.

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If, IF you keep a branch or branches from that region, yes. But if you do not and all your ultimate tree branches starting above the new graft you just have an interstem sectionā€¦there may be reasons to do this, like compatibility, but clonally your branches will be ā€œpureā€ of whatever variety the trunk was WHERE THE BRANCH ORIGINATESā€¦ you dont hybridize or blend by grafting, you stick a new clone on existing wood. So you will only have a 2-in-1 tree if you keep branches from both trunk sections.

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Btw if you have 2 varieties now why are you grafting them onto each other? You have the 2 for pollenization as is, again i may be missing something but it sounds like you are just takinng 2 trees and ā€œswapping topsā€

Both of those trees will most likely be 2 in 1ones, with young trees branches sprawling from both areas, cool experiment/practice! Better to practice now and figure it out before buying scions later to practice.

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I have cross-grafted many of my purchased trees. Now I am adding ā€˜extras.ā€™ Originally, I wanted to preserve everything; so if one tree croaks I still have the genome of both. I plan to make many multiple grafts this year, putting scions where I want them on multi-trees but also grafting repeats on the wild trees around here to, once again, hang onto the genome to make sure I have some back-ups. I went to the HOS propagation extravaganza this year and ended up with some really special cultivars. Would be a shame to make one graft and have it fail.

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both of them are successful! home made 2 in 1 apple tree :slight_smile: I gave one of them to a friend, due to space constraints.

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