Quick Question Regarding Budding/Grafting of Apple Trees

Good evening all,

There is a lovely apple tree in the garden of the house we are renting, which last year gave us an abundance of delicious early apples, the variety is named Scrumptious. I am quite keen on the idea of growing apples (we also have a very young James Grieve tree in an enormous pot in our garden that is our own,) and I also like the idea of grafting or t-budding to create family trees. Not necessarily for practical purposes (such as would be the case with Bramley's, for example,) but more for the cosmetic appeal of having different colours on different parts of the tree (but we would still no doubt use all of the apples.) It is something that I would one day like to try, once we have settled somewhere.

A friend of ours used to be a horticulturist, and has offered to carry out the work for us, when we are ready. I was thinking about taking a scion of the Scrumptious tree (when the time comes.) I understand that we would have to graft the scion to a rootstock, but if we were to try t-budding or chip-budding, should the bud be grafted onto another bud on the actual rootstock, our could it be grafted on to a bud on to the fruit-bearing part of an already established cultivar and rootstock? That is to say, would I need to buy a rootstock from a nursery, or could it be grafted onto, for example,the actual James Grieve part of our existing tree?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any response you can offer.

Kind regards,

Matthew

 

I would graft your scion to a root stock from the nursery(m106). It is possible your james grieve is grafted on either m26 or m106 and you could t-bud on this and you would end up with bramleys and james grieve on the same tree,why not experiment and do both.

 

Thank you for your reply Walnut. Yes the James Grieve is on an M26 rootstock. So if I decide to do it onto our existing tree, you would advise to t-bud directly onto the M26 rootstock, not on to the James Grieve itself? Does that mean that I would need to find a bud on the rootstock to t-bud it on to?

 

Sorry to add another question so quickly, but why should the t-budding be done directly onto the rootstock and not on to the James Grieve? It should still take on the James Grieve, shouldn't it? Or is it just asking for trouble linking to the roots via another variety?

Thanks,

Matthew

 

Mathew grafting on to rootstocks of known combinations has been time proven the grafts take readily and usually without complications,grafting the james grieve to the bramley may not produce a compatable graft there are no guarantees it will take, there will be no problem at root level, like I say experiment.

 

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for your advice and taking the time to explain it to me.

Matthew