Ok, after this beautiful day I have several observations I'd like to stir up some discussion on. In 2006, I cleft grafted on some red gravenstein scions to a broken liberty apple tree. Today, I notice the 'parent' red gravenstein tree is showing blossom buds that I can see red in. Then I walked over to the Liberty-Red Gravenstein grafted tree. The Liberty portion is just barely pusing buds and I noticed the Red Gravenstein is just barely pusing bud too. It is a good 2-3 weeks or more behind the parent tree. It has grown well and the graft at its base is 3 inches in diameter. The base of the parent tree is 4 inches. It seems that after 3 years, the grafts should be complete. Can the parent tree slow down the blossom time so much? If that is true, can it affect the ripening time as well? Any comments or thoughts are appreciated.
Greg,
I have noticed when I graft onto a different rootstock, say different apples or crabapples on different apple, aronia, or flowering quince rootstock, that both rootstock and scion have effects. I can't calculate exactly how much, but they both seem to factor in.
John S
PDX OR
I guess a followup question I am wondering is - What does this do to the pollination charts? It is obvious the parent red gravenstein tree will be done blooming before the grafted red gravenstein blooms. It is quite possible I will need a different pollinator for each even though they are just one variety.
I finally got my Shipova to bloom! It is a natural cross between mountain ash and pear. Normally it blooms after all european pears, but now it is blooming at the same time as most of them. Better for pollination. I grafted it onto aronia rootstock. One Green World offers it as an alternative to a Shipova tree. I just took a section off my tree a couple of years after having it grow, and grafted it. It still flowered before the tree. I find pears extremely cooperative with grafting, even with my rough technique.
John S
PDX OR
I've also been wondering if grafting an early blooming scion onto a late blooming rootstock could retard blooming. Would this approach work for retarding the blooming period of apricots?? My apricot trees are already leafed out & the prune trees are barely started. Just an idea. Then all I have to accomplish is to get the apricot to live more than a couple years.