Upside down graft

General Fruit Growing
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Imagine my surprise when I saw this upside down graft starting to sprout! Is this going to make it?

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I read this older publication recently which may shed some light on the issue:

http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/1950-10--dwarf-trees.pdf

The basic gist is that grafting the scion upside down results in a dwarfing effect. And, according to the author, the limbs initially grown down, but then up, resulting in what he considers good crotch angles.

So I’m guessing that’s best case scenario.

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I have often thought about doing it on top of a tree that needs to be headed back. I wonder if it would help the top to grow a better top of a tree after heading?

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I think it will grow and eventually you won’t be able to tell it is backwards. Just my opinion so let it grow and we shall find out. I accidentally grafted one of my blueberries upside down and after a month of adjustments it is growing upward as well as the others are.

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Right, and if you put it at the top of a tree, like cut the top off and graft upside down the branches will grow the way you want before going back up. I’m sure they will sucker and grow back upward so maybe it wouldn’t help much but maybe for a bit. Edit : with the branches growing down backwards, when fruit gets on the limbs it would bend to center so bad idea.

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I am going to leave this one alone as an experiment. This is a duplicate and I have a more mature tree of the same (Karmijn da Sonnaville)

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I would definitely leave it to see what happens. I have grafted an upside down scion twice (yes, I’m that dumb). Both were apples which I almost always get to take, but neither of my upside downs took. So I really think its fairly hard to get them to take, but as people above said, I can see how it could be a good thing. Keep us posted.

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Ok, I grafted 4 (Apple) varieties, but I ended up doing 7 grafts (I chopped a few). *my failure at grafting apples is funny…I’m successful with plums, persimmons, kiwis, etc just not apples.

4 of mine seem to be taking, one of them is backwards (upside down).

Any feedback on this old thread? Does this scion have a chance? I know there have been successes, but anyone from here?

Scott

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10

Regarding the upside down graft. Mine survived a whole year and then died. So a failure on my side.

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Mine was apple. The graft took but stalled for weeks. I ran out of patience and removed it after about 2 months.

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Has anybody have an upside down graft stay alive long term?
Curious if it seem to have any dwarfing effects.

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