If you wish to have the tree branches start higher up (so that you have clearance for vehicles, machinery, etc.) is it OK to graft the scion up high on the rootstock? For instance, leave the rootstock 4-5' and then saddle graft the scion on the top? (flowering cherry onto standard/seedling size rootstock)
Graft height shouldn't matter. Multi variety trees are grafted at 3'+ height with their different buds.
I would guess that the lower your graft the better the chance of the desired cultivar surviving some sort of tree injury such as a weed whacker girdling. The rootstock would grow back if the graft was above the damage rather than the desired cultivar. I had a blacktail buck rub all the bark off one of my cherry trees down to just above the graft. Luckily he stopped above the graft and the Royal Ann cherry is growing back. Had the graft been any higher I'd have had to regraft.
This spring I whacked off an old Yellow Transparent apple at 5' height and whip and tongue grafted two different colored flowering crabs onto some water sprouts that were at the top of the stump. Was tired of picking up apples from the sidewalk. I'm hoping to have a "candy cane tree" within a couple years with mixed red and white flowers on the same tree.
Grafts work higher up. If the tree’s well established, that’s often the easiest location - as it’s closer to the sun… If you’re grafting a ‘new tree’ onto rootstock, you might as well graft it low, maintain it’s terminal bud and allow it to grow a couple years to the height you’d like it to branch.
Leaving the rootstock ‘tall’ allows for near constant competitive growth below the desired cultivar (scion above) and leaves a long run to the scion … which may make a difference in how much energy it receives from the roots.
I’d graft low; as mentioned, if you lost the top growth you wouldn’t lose your variety – a new shoot could be trained to replace it. If the length of trunk was rootstock, you wouldn’t have that option.
John, those I know who’ve grafted high (or insisted I ‘put it there’) end up with the second variety so high it’s hard to tell what effect length of run has on vigor. The fruit appears the same… but the graft’s so high it never amounts to more than a limb, at best.
Hey, I looked at some Columnar apple trees gone wild yesterday – talk about high! These were around 12 – 14 feet, branched several times, with everything going straight up – and terminal buds intact! A friend wondered if I could graft on another variety of apple, realizing the new variety would spread like a ‘normal’ tree. …didn’t know what to say, other than, yes, I could stick on a ‘regular scion,’ but wondered what the dynamics of it being about 5 feet up a ‘Columnar tree’ would be..?
…thinking out loud… what if someone, though I suspect they’re still patented(…) grafted a Columnar to whatever rootstock (my friend thinks his are on M7), let it do it’s ‘straight up’ thing for a year or two, set fruit spurs like crazy along its trunk – then graft a (useful/normal) apple tree higher up? M7 would have plenty of vigor and if there was any limiting within the Columnar it might serve a useful purpose for the stock above..?
He had three Columnar trees and wasn’t impressed with them. They were sure interesting to examine, healthy fat uprights - shooting for the moon! They must be sports of spur trees, as the fruit spurs were extremely close. I really couldn’t advise him, and honestly, didn’t feel like messing with them … leave weird enough alone was likely my final advice. Is their novelty over? I noticed some being (unloaded) sold at the exchange; no thanks, thought I…
I think columnar apples are mostly for people in urban areas with very small lots. Think of it as a lazy alternative to an espalier. I don't want them, but i have a large suburban lot.
Viron, I was talking about grafting at 3 feet or 4 feet having a dwarfing effect. Surely, you'd get more than a limb, and most people don't want branches under that anyway. I had just heard that it has a dwarfing effect on eventual tree height.
John S
PDX OR
[quote="John S":1nxvlfwo]I have heard, but I can not confirm, that grafting high has a dwarfing effect on the rootstock. [/quote:1nxvlfwo]
Do you mean a dwarfing effect on the eventual cultivar? Allowing the rootstock to form the trunk before adding the desired cultivar/s shouldn’t have an effect on the ‘rootstock.’
[quote="John S":1nxvlfwo] I had just heard that it has a dwarfing effect on eventual tree height.
PDX OR[/quote:1nxvlfwo]
…thinking out loud here… rootstocks dwarf by not collecting or allowing all the nutrients the grafted cultivar would like. If the length of the rootstock extended upward, becoming the main trunk, I suspect it may add an additional dwarfing effect, but only 3 or 4 feet may not amount to much. I’d just use the next smaller or more dwarfing rootstock.
I still like the idea of the above ground portion of the tree being ‘what you want,’ not rootstock. A Columnar tree I analyzed yesterday was a good example of that; it had a severe sun scald wound and had sent up two ‘shoots’ from just below it, around a foot above the ground/graft. I told my friend he could remove everything above those shoots including the ugly wound and they would re-create the tree… Had it been rootstock, not so.
Hi All,
My experimental experience has shown that grafting high may have a dwarfing effect on the cultivar. But I’m not sure about that.
A few years ago I ordered a trial with two different cherry varieties grafted on a single dwarfing rootstock (Inmil) form Y. Inmil known as the most dwarfing rootstock on cherry.
Unfortunately I did this test with two different varieties performed on the same rootstock. So I can’t really judge.
one part was grafted at a height of 10 inch (Starbrimsom)
the other was grafted 4 ft. high (Burlat)
Preventing root suckering is one of the significant preference to grafting high of 10 inch
Rootstock Gisela 5 is the most current rootstock in this part of the world for cherries
Within a few years it induces fruitful trees
Overall growth is ultimately determined by the growth characteristics of the rootstock
High or low grafting plays a minor role in that.
An early but especially heavy crop is the goal in professional cherry culture, therefore they prefer a default height of 10 inch.
My opinion a best choise.
I grafted weeping cherry onto two wild cherry trees in my front yard on January 17, 2009. The grafts are 12' up. I see lots of weeping cherries grafted on trunks at about 5'. The trunks get very large and the weeping cherry branches are much smaller. My experiment was to have two "palm tree" style weeping cherries that I could walk under without having to duck.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
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