Grafting Apples.

Almost a month ago, I went to the MOFGA Seed Swap and Scion Exchange, at the fairgrounds in Unity.  That was a fine day.  I hadn't been to the event before, and it was kind of mind blowing.  I'm told that it used to be about 20 seed savers sitting around and staring at each other.  Now it's a melee.  (I didn't mean to swat that guy over the head with an apple switch.  I apologized afterward!)  Tables are set out with scion wood from the Maine Heritage Apple Orchard and other sources.  There were probably 100 varieties.  Plus there was pear wood, hardy kiwi, a few basket willows, grape cuttings, kefir grains, and seeds! Among other things, I got seed for honeylocust, maackia, and rose acacia.  These are all leguminous trees.  And I got some ginko seed, and best of all, some chestnut seed from blight resistant breeding programs.  I hope I can get all that to sprout.  I built a quick and dirty rodent resistant box to sprout them in.

A couple of days ago I sorted out my 16 favorite apple scions and got to work grafting them out.  I can't say that they're really my favorites, but I went through the list and tried to find interesting, multi-use apples with good storage qualities.  In the end I had 16 of them out of 46 on the list, so that's what I headed out into the yard with.

I've got a small volunteer apple that blooms well but I haven't seen any fruit from.  It's a dwarf.  It was growing in my garden fence, and I decided it would make a good nurse for some of my scions.  I cut the fence clear, did a little first aid pruning, and grafted a bunch of my selections to it.  I marked each one with some flagging tape with the variety name written on it.

Most of my grafts are whip and tongue.  I did some cleft grafts when the branches seemed to resist the bending needed for whip and tongue.  Properly put together, whip and tongue looks like this:

The cambium layer (which is the green growing layer just under the bark) of each side of the graft should line up, for as much distance as can be accomplished.  Once I have the graft in place, I wrap it tightly with vinyl electric tape.  I use a simple utility knife with a replaceable blade to make the cuts.  I know special wax and special knives are traditional, but this seems to work.  The tape should cover up and down the graft to make it water tight.  If the graft takes, about when the branch needs to swell from growth, the tape will fail from UV exposure.  It can be gently removed or will fall off around then.

There are several other places I grafted scions.  I've got a few trees here and there that seem like good candidates for places to park the genetics.

On a related note, I also went in lines on the north and south sides of the garden and planted rotten apples.  Maybe fermented is a better word.  These are apples I picked last fall, intended to process for sauce, and ended up stashed in the apartment where they froze.  So the seed is stratified (winter cold treated) and should sprout.  About every six feet, I put in the shovel, opened a slit, pulled the shovel out, and stomped an apple in, getting it just below the surface.  Time will tell if they're going to sprout.  If they do, I'll be grafting to them.