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Frankenstein fruit tree

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Postman:
If you want to get fruit from most types of apple, cherry, pear, etc. trees you have to buy 2 varieties that can pollinate each other. If you only want 1 tree, you can graft short sections of limbs called "Scions" from say, 1 sweet cherry like" Bing" to another like "Black tartarian" Check internet sources in your state or similar climate areas for compatible pollinizers  -they have to bloom at the same time. Supposedly, sour and sweet cherries do not commonly cross each other effectively in most areas.This will allow the tree to pollinate itself.

If explaining this in a high school, wait for jokes to subside....

Basically, you select a twig piece (scion)  with 3-4 buds and make 2 diagonal cut below a bud to get a pointy wedge.  A diagonal cut on the "graftee" (forget tech. term)  should be done on a slightly thicker twig, above 1 bud and slightly below another. This opens a spot to place your scion. A sharp cut straight down is done, you slightly twist the knife, and jam in the scion. The side with more bark gets to face out. You are trying to get the greener outer layers of the 2 twigs (cambium) to match up and join together as they heal. Tape it tightly with grafting tape, or electrical and/or wife's "nurse tape" if you can't find any and forgot to order it

Postman:
Another type of graft is the T- graft. Here, we are taking just 1 bud, slicing it off like a scab, and sliding it into a T_ shaped cut on the host tree.

Postman:
Here is my 8 year old summer rambo apple tree, with  a 2-year old grafts of a gold delicious and 4 other unknown varieties from a commercially grafted "5- on - 1"  mail order apple tree that was on it's last legs. I pollinated it last year by swapping "bouquets" of flowers with a gold delicious tree. Hopefully the grafts will at least bloom this year, though I doubt they will set fruit. The tree I swapped with was 10 years old and produced fruit for the first time. My summer rambo went crazy, and I had to pick a lot of apples early so it wouldn't lose limbs.

In the first pic. you can see the healed over graft and black tape residue. I mark the grafts with plastic or  leave the tape and prune below them to stimulate growth of the new varieties.  Marking them also protects them from accidental pruning. Pruning and training fruit trees is easy, and necessary for good production.

I'll try to update this  if the cherry grafts  work and the apple grafts flower successfully  - it took 3 springs  to successfully graft  my apples, so try again if you fail!

gstoneberg:
Very nice.  Love that shot of the kids and apples.  I've never seen grafting done, very informative.  Never know what you're going to learn on Primitive Archer.

George

Cameroo:
This post reminds me of watching my grandpa doing some grafting when I was about 5.  I had no idea what he was doing or why.  Now I know :)  That's very cool.

Is it possible to make a  frankenstein with 2 totally different fruits?  Not for the purpose of cross-pollination, but just for novelty?

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