Grafting Work
63 postsSummer
63 postsgarrington choke cherry vs wild black fruited chokecherry
the first few photos are garrington, grafted a few years ago. the branches hang heavy with large fruit, fully ripe at the end of July. by contrast the wild chokecherry is smaller and at best a bright red today, they'll...
Read field notetwo red/purple leafed chokecherry selections
the first was bright green fruit today at the end of july, an attractive contrast against the leaves. the second is lee red chokecherry, a selection with fully ripe black fruit on the same day, and it also has a taller...
Read field noterussian pear sizing up on these saskatoon grafts from 2022
the tag was lost on this graft but it's likely Bolshaya, which means big. I've found that pear grow quite well on saskatoon, though it does best on younger ones maybe 1/2 - 3/4" diameter stems should be used, and by this...
Read field notesweet cherry, Prunus avium - a russian cultivar Lenningrad Black
flowering after 2 winters with -40C grafted onto this pin cherry. kind of awesome, sweet cherry is not supposed to grow here, maybe some combination of the...
Read field notefirst crop of wild plums growing on this draft, it's a four year american wild plum old graft onto chokecherry
it's flowered the last two years, but needed a second genetically distinct branch added for pollination. Prunus americana is reasonably graft compatible with chokecherry, not every graft I've survived this long but...
Read field noteapples fruiting on wild saskatoon rootstock
a selection of apples grafted about shoulder high onto established saskatoon/ serviceberry, up high above the deer browse line. at three years old, showing good graft compatibility and precocity. is this supposed to be...
Read field notebei tang graft, before I chopped it up for cuttings
it's a recently named hybrid cherry plum, a cross between sapalta...
Read field notesuper dwarf apples, september ruby grafted onto saskatoon. I did these three years ago and finally got a cage around them last summer, otherwise rabbits. a fun result I think.
double worked plum
on the rootstock is a short length of Prunus americana, and then on top Yakima plum, a cold hardy european plum. will it survive -40? we'll find out, it's in a semi sheltered location, five ft off the ground, and on a...
Read field noteH
sinensis grafted to Hippophae rhamnoides, so it's a larger later ripening sea buckthorn species, female and full of...
Read field noteblack ice plums growing on chokecherry with an american wild plum interstem
one of a few dozen cultivars I'm trying on these interstems this year. vigorously growing chokecherry with a trunk 1" or more, in good sunlight are suitable. I expect the plum to grow a little larger so still waiting to...
Read field noteintergeneric grafts on saskatoon, first one is hawthorn, which is producing lots of growth with crazy 3" thorns, second
is double worked pears, an interstem of a fast growing variety topped with favoritka red, a hard to find russian pear. if you make it to the last one it's a 3 minute walk through of...
Read field noteapricot on chokecherry with americana interstem
i did around 4-5 branches at shoulder height, growing good so far. this double working is basically doing two grafts at once, first the american wild plum goes onto the stock tree, and a few inches up that graft, another...
Read field notewestern sandcherry grafted to *chokecherry*, showing some red indicating stress, early dormancy, no real growth
so at least this graft unlikely to pull through. compared to prunus americana grafts which have dark green leaves and a couple ft of growth. I still want sandcherries...
Read field notefavoritka pear, on saskatoon 3 year old graft first year flowering
determined to get to try these russian pears this year, maybe I should do a japanese...
Read field noteapple grafts on saskatoon. growing better than you would expect, I have at least a dozen from 2022 growing healthy and some of those are fruiting. no indications of incompatibility really, growth is slower but grafts can still put on 12-18" in a year which is in the healthy range.
purple/red leafed chokecherry, fun to graft these around and see the color change in june
the new leaves are green and change to purple...
Read field notechecking apple grafts on saskatoon. some were done late spring, fun to see them decide to flower. two year old grafts have some fruit, first time.
one of our sweet cherry grafts onto pin cherry, well it made a flower
notable, first Prunus avium flower at our nursery, maybe the first one I've seen. for sure the first sweet cherry...
Read field notenew pear grafts, about three weeks for them to leaf out, this is when I start to check for rootstock shoot extension
and keep it managed, these are top worked saskatoon trees so it's good to leave some lower...
Read field notewalk around my experimental pear orchard, grafted onto saskatoon
five min video. maybe I should be shooting for youtube, really this is mostly for my own video documentation, or if you’ve thought about growing pears on saskatoon rootstock this give you an idea of what 1-3 year old...
Read field notea few apples ok this multi-grafted tree, starting to get some color
two chokecherry cultivars, first one is lee red, second is probably Schubert
they graft easily onto wild chokecherry and add some color. Lee Red has larger leaves on my grafts, not sure if that’s common, it does...
Read field noteapples I grafted onto a wild crab in our yard a few years ago, lost the tag and forget the variety. norkent?
first fruit, this is apple on saskatoon. Itâs a small graft in the shade from two years ago, but hey itâs an apple growing on a saskatoon tree.
more photos of baker’s gold apricot
my review is they’re good, similar to ones i’ve had from the grocery store, larger. clingstone, not tart, mild flavour, hey it’s the first apricot I’ve had in a long while and a month earlier than any plums around, a...
Read field noteexperimental apple grafts from 2022, finally caged. a year ago they were a rabbitâs lunch and now have recovered, maybe 12â of growth this summer. these are on saskatoon which I expect to dwarf them, no one seems to know if itâs compatible as an apple rootstock. for new grafts I start at shoulder height to be above the browse line.
hawthorn grafted onto saskatoon
There’s an interesting overlap of graft compatibility in the Rosacea family between several genuses, pear and quince, saskatoon and aronia, hawthorn and apple, and I have to assume more if you find the right interstems...
Read field notespring american wild plum grafts onto chokecherry
maybe six weeks old. I trim back most of the epicormic growth but not all of it, actually letting it reduce vigour improves...
Read field notegraft union for this one year old red leafed malus baccata on our native amelanchier alnifolia, an unusual combination that seems to be healthy and somewhat graft compatible. #grafting #applegrafting
grafting wild canadian plum
chip budding apricots hardy to zone 3 -40C
this year i have them on mustang, next year also onto western sand cherry. If you have labels ready then it’s easy to keep...
Read field notefinished budding plums and apricots for the year I think
Maybe I’ll do more, not sure how late it can go. In warmer places I hear July is the right time, but here early august seems like the...
Read field notechecking apple grafts top worked onto saskatoon this spring. #grafting
block of black chokecherry, prunus virginiana var melanocarpa grafted over to an assortment of other prunus to trial
compatibility, grow out budwood for august budding onto rootstocks, and to produce softwood for rooting. So far this season take was high across every prunus species, and at 6-8 weeks every graft that leafed out...
Read field notered siberian crabapple selection grafted to saskatoon / serviceberry one month ago. Out of all the apple grafts Iâve trialed onto A. alnifolia this one has had the best early growth. #grafting
on old harbin pear tree top worked to produce scion wood
Working over old trees like this can take one scion and multiply it for the next grafting season. This spring I used many of the scions to graft new...
Read field notesome late summer t budding, apple on saskatoon. the bark is still slipping on some trees. on smaller stocks or if the bark or if the bark doesnât want to cooperate then a chip bud works. These can be done late in the season because they just need take and then usually wait for spring to grow. #budgrafting #tbudgrafting #grafting
chip budding plums
We’ve had by far the best result with Toka plum this year in our experimental grading trials onto wild rootstock, some of our grafts done in may have grown 4’ with secondary scaffolds. We’re now chip...
Read field noteWhip & tongue graft union
Field grafted domestic plum on Prunus virginiana at nine weeks. This year my hobby experiment as an aside to our nursery has been to explore graft compatibility with wild rootstocks, include the P. virginiana and A...
Read field notemodified cleft graft, you can see the small flap on the left
we’re unwrapping plum grafts this week and checking on how they’ve healed, we did most of these grafts in early May. Our pear and apple grafts can wait a while because we did them...
Read field notewe had a wind storm this morning that broke off this grafted plum branch (shown upside down), there was a couple feet
of flush growth above it. at 8 weeks there’s more girdling than expected. Maybe I wrapped it too tight. One thing to pay close attention to is the strength of the graft union, if the tissues are less than compatible it...
Read field notesummer update for our plum on wild choke cherry grafts
Nearly every prunus variety we tried has grown, the most vigorous growth on this set of trees on a sunny hill. Success with this type of grafting in the first year seems to depend on the age and location of the root...
Read field noteFall Red apple on wild saskatoon in its second season. At the end of grafting season last year I tried a few malus on amelanchier intergeneric grafts. It was july before they took so little growth last year, but I happy to see most of the grafts survived and and growing this summer. Fall red seems to have the strongest growth, but more trials and seasons of observation will tell. For now at minimum I know how to save left over scion wood if needed. Whatâs promising just like our prunus trials is that we donât need every cultivar to do well on saskatoon, we just need one and if can serve as an interstem. Our property happens to have established saskatoon underbrush almost everywhere mixed with the choke cherry and hazel, and Iâm excited to find out what can be grafted onto it and exactly how long lived these grafts can be. The trees live for maybe 40 years and will certainly be more dwarfing that a full sized apple rootstock. #applegrafting #serviceberry
Plum grafts on wild choke cherry
Our grafts were all done in the first three weeks of May and many are showing signs of growth, so a successful union so far. The take rate seems to correlate with age of the root stock and competing vegetation on it more...
Read field notenanking cherry grafted on wild chokecherry
(Prunus tomentosa on Prunus virginiana). Will it take? I’m hopeful for this combination. Also it’s fun when scions blossom, feels like a small success...
Read field notesmall choke cherry tree grafted over to plums at three weeks
keeping the under growth continually rubbed off to ensure all of the growth is focused on the grafts seems key. For larger trees Instead of defoliating I’ve been topping all the other...
Read field noteapples grafted on saskatoon / service berry last month. September ruby, chestnut crab, Goodland, norkent. So far theyâre healthy and growing as fast as anything I grafted on an apple tree this year. Thereâs at least early indication of good compatibility with these cold hardy cultivars. could this be just an excellent cold hardy dwarfing rootstock? Last winter we had a dozen nights colder than -35C, and the saskatoons are bullet proof to the cold. #applegrafting
goodland apples are flowing this week. This tree and a few scions Iâve grafted out are all flowering at once. Takes a late spring for an apple tree to wait for the summer solstice to flower.
grafted plums are taking off
This one is Nanking cherry on the left and Toka plum on the right. These are putting on better growth than our orchard plum trees on their third leaf, the Prunus virginiana frame tree is well adapted to our sandy soil...
Read field noteprogress on one of our multi grafted prunus virginiana
This size of tree seems to produce the most vigorous growth. #grafting...
Read field noteapple grafted to Saskatoon #grafting






























































