4 up until this current season and finding my new hobby/obsession er, I mean the growing fruit forum 
Now I am a 1.5 headed towards a 1 once my confidence level increases. I see it like riding a bicycle, but a lot easier with less bumps and bruises along the way if you do it the safe way (with the proper equipment and sharp tools)
20 years is a long time to wait… regardless of age, right?
And you are only as old as you feel… except lately I have been really feeling older than I am! 
Nothing fits what I do. I don’t want a whole tree of one fruit. So I buy trees and add cultivars. Giving a cultivar a whole scaffold is enough of any one kind I need in most cases.
Also if I can graft so can anybody. It’s not like it’s that hard.
I guess number 1 fits me the closest.
Even cheaper,is to plant some seeds and in about two years,there are your root stocks.
I have to go with the 1.5–as in 75/25. My buying of trees is slowing way down. I grow my own rootstocks and I just like to graft. I had an apple tree get damage last year and died. Since I knew it was happening I grabbed some scion from it while still alive. Because it was one of the two I had purchased to pollinate my Bramley’s I placed a piece of the Reverend Morgan right on the Bramley’s tree. It’s still there to pollinate. There are of good reasons to be able to graft. People will buy those young grafted trees from you and there you go. And…
I’m all over the place. I find it fulfilling to graft, but it isn’t always the most convenient or expedient. Growing fruit is important enough to me now that I don’t mind spending money on trees.
It can be very easy to graft, though, so the difficulty doesn’t seem like a great excuse.
Been a 1 for over 25 yrs
I started as a 4 and am now a 1.
I am a peach/nectarine/apricot enthusiast searching for the “best” varieties in a given harvest window. I have 11 trees in my backyard which ripen all summer long and into the fall.
I used to pull trees out that I was not happy with and replace them with something else in the same harvest window. This was a process that took many, many, years.
This site taught me how to graft, allowing me to try many different varieties in a very short period of time. Super helpful!
I’m a 4.
Started as a 4, now a 3 and mostly out of space for larger trees and bushes. My percent of graft takes still leaves a lot to be desired, but I’m not giving up on those varieties that are either really difficult to get unless you graft or are super expensive to purchase.
I’m #1 all the way
-Going into 3e season grafting fruit this spring. Made 100+ tree’s last year.
-Grafting ornamentals to now.
-Not only grafting for variety. But also bud/branch placement now.
-I nowadays get more excited about a new rootstock or interstem plant. And the new posibility’s those unlock. Than the actual fruiting variety. (still looking for EU adara source, plzz let me know if you know one. Or have to trade/sell!)
-Also planted stooling (to layer) rootstock beds last year.
-Just sticking plants together and having them merge is a wonderfull facinating thing. Feels like a cross between a carpenter and a mad scientist doing it.
-Have taught 10+ other people to graft 
-It might seem scary at first. But i started with a sharp grafting knife some parafilm M and a few 0.01$ plant labels from ebay. And once you did a few, it’s not that hard at all . I can highly recommend watching some grafting video’s from skillcult or one of the other good sources to build up confidence.
-If met no-one that regretted learning how to graft!!!
-to me grafting, rooting cuttings and sowing seeds are all gardening skills everyone should strive to learn. And once you did, you can’t imagine going without.
-The feeling when , it’s hard to spot the graft/ you used up every single bud on a bud-stick/ when your grafts are growing/ when your graft of that small budstick with only latent buds of that rare variety starts growing. Is amazing!!!
I’m 3/4. I buy sevaral already grafted varieties (grapes) but I also try to make crossings, so I’m actually working to learn grafting to save from filloxera the possible interesting cross that I could achieve… 
1-ish. My father and I grafted almost all the trees I own, partly because it’s cheaper, partly to get different varieties, and partly just for kicks. I did buy one peach tree, because my wife wanted a peach tree and I understand that stone fruit are harder to graft. All the rest of my trees are apples and pears.
Not to try to talk you into anything, Marc, because I hear where you are coming from and there are many things where I tend to be the same way, but in my experience, learning to graft well enough for my own amusement has not been as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, there are people here who are very highly skilled, and I want to be clear that I have total respect for that! But with apples and pears, I’ve found that even as a novice, I can get pretty good results doing not-terribly-skillful cleft grafts with a utility knife. (Parafilm seems to help a lot.)
its the same here. very few nurseries and limited stock. grafting is a much cheaper option to get more varieties out of our trees. even though im fairly new to it and so far have only mastered the cleft graft, it has inspired me to continue. i even converted a voulenteer mountain ash to grow pears and so far had 95% takes on grafts of 4 varieties. blows my mind that a common wild tree here, grown as a ornamental could be used to grow fruit! i also have a shipova pear grafted onto a aronia rootstock.
1.5
marknmt , I couldn’t have said it better.
When finished, I hope to have 30 to 50 trees that have 60 to 80 or more varieties, some single variety trees, and the majority multi-graft and frankentrees. There is no way you could find the combinations I’ll have without paying someone to “custom-graft” them all for me…and it is doubtful you could find a single “someone” who would seek out all the varieties for me, acquire them, & etc… (I suppose you could send your scions to him or her though.) But then you will be waiting the same amount of time for the trees to grow as if you had grafted them yourself…
The cleft graft is a piece-of-cake, and most reliable when scion and subject are of different sizes. Whip-and-tongue sure heels a lot faster, though, and is much better looking.
i have very shaky hands and as many times ive tried to do whip and tongue i just cant get it to match up right . at least the cleft is more forgiving and looks dont bother me… i plan to try chip budding and a few others as well. hopefully ill be more successful with those.
Try using a tack strip cutter. Cuts come out nearly perfect every time.
is there a brand you recommend ? i looked on amazon and theres all types.
