Please forgive my true newness to grafting and a lot about fruit in general. I have been looking into cleft grafting on our large existing apple tree whose fruit we’ve been less than satisfied with. But then I thought – what about our younger (planted last year) trees? Can I graft onto them this spring or are they too young? I know I’d need a different grafting technique for them because of the size of the branches but I honestly don’t know which one.
I feel bad asking but my Google searching is just confusing me and I have no offline fruit friends to ask!
Sure you can graft young trees. And you can still use a cleft graft. Even if the tree and scion are similar in size. A cleft graft is one of the easiest grafts to do.
3 Likes
Ditto what speedster said.
Apple trees are very forgiving when it comes to grafting so your odds are good regardless of grafting method. Just make sure to match cambium layers with good contact on rootstock to scion, tape and seal to prevent desiccation.
I’m really glad to hear this. What I had read on cleft grafting was more about working over older trees with 1-2 inch branches and the young trees are smaller. It would be great to get several different varieties of scionwood and do the grafting all this year, big tree and little trees. Thanks!!
With an older tree where you are grafting pencil sized wood to a thick branch in the 3+ inch range you’d want to use what’s called a rind graft. These allow you to graft 3+ scions per branch to increase your odds. I’ve not had quite as much luck with these as other methods as it required a tight wrapping of the branch in order to allow callous and prevent movement of the scions. It also requires some extensive sealing of the entire tree wound.
On limbs that are 2" or smaller I prefer a 2-scion cleft graft. I’ve been very successful with these. And when the scions are similar in size you have many options including cleft, whip and tongue, saddle, or simple splice graft. Whip and tongue is common when bench grafting but can be ackward of trying to use on an existing tree.
In my opinion the easiest trees to graft from easiest to most difficult is pear, apple, plum, cherry, apricot, peach/necterine.
1 Like
Thank you, that’s very helpful. We cut the established tree back last year to tame it a bit and there are a good variety of branches that are grafting prospects (I left a few new ones along the trunk that had decent angles too in preparation for grafting.) some small some large.
A bit of a follow up here and dealing with more of my inexperience. . . 
On the younger trees, I figured the branches I want to use for grafting I will just leave untouched as I prune and cut them when actually grafting. But the big apple tree that I want to graft into – I am wondering as we need to dormant spray soon and I hate to spray branches I plan to cut. Is it possible to cut the majority of a branch, then cut again a couple of feet below that when ready to graft, or is this a bad idea?
Also, any personal recommendations for a good sealer for the grafts? Most seem to be about the same.