Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Fruit Tree Grafting
Hi everyone. In this radio show and podcast, we talk about fruit trees. We talk about how to grow them and how to care for them, but we rarely talk about how to make a fruit tree from scratch.
Now, you may think I'm nuts for even mentioning it. After all, you can just plant a seed from your favorite apple, and you'll get an apple tree. Johnny Appleseed did it. He planted thousands of apple trees in Pennsylvania and Ohio in the 1800s, but the resulting fruit might not have tasted very good. Now that didn't matter at the time because apples then were mostly used for animal feed or for making cider.
The problem is that apples and many other different types of fruit, they don't grow true to seed. For example, each seed in a delicious Honeycrisp apple will produce a genetically unique tree with genetically unique fruit. If you want to grow Honeycrisp apples or any other specific variety of fruit, you need to plant a grafted or a cloned tree and we're going to learn how to do that in the show today with my guest, Steph Roth of Silver Creek Nursery in Ontario.
But before we begin, I would love to hear from you. Have you tried to graft fruit trees? Have you been successful? Are you passionate about grafting new fruit trees? And if so, why? Write us an email during the live show today with a comment, with a question, or just to say hi and be sure to include your first name and where you're writing from, and I really look forward to hearing from you.
So let's dig into today's topic.
[00:01:51] Guest Introduction: Steph Roth
Steph, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Oh, thanks very much for inviting me. It's so much fun to have you here. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about your history. Did you graft fruit trees from when you were just like a little girl, or is this a relatively newer thing for you?
It's a little newer. I'd say probably about five years ago would have been when I first started grafting, and that was working for my cousin Ken, who was the previous owner of Silver Creek Nursery, but a couple years ago I had bought it over. I haven't been grafting my whole life by any means, but I do have a good number of years under my belt.
Was it easy for you right away? Is grafting a new fruit tree like a super easy thing for a brand new person approaching it? It's practice. If you practice a lot, then you'll have better success for sure. If you are going to just try and do it in one go, one cut, the first cut you ever make, and try and make that one be the one, it probably will not take for you.
But yeah, practice makes a world of difference. And if you practice, you can eventually get just about any, within reason, but you can really do some cool things with grafting. So what was your progress like in the beginning? The beginning, I started with chip budding, so that's grafting and done in the summer, and it's basically taking just a bud from your budwood and inserting it into the trunk of your rootstock, and that, I would say, that one's a little easier to learn.
You're more secure in how you handle the materials and everything. And if you start with simple varieties, for example, Northern Spy is a very graft compatible variety and grafting onto M106, which is also very graft compatible together, you have a good chance of having success, even if your cuts aren't perfectly flush, which is the key to having a good graft.
You want to make sure your cuts are matching perfectly. Okay, we have our first email. We'll start off with this email from Elaine. So Elaine writes, Hi, excellent program. Can you suggest where I can buy Canadian grown rootstock? That's tricky. There is in Nova Scotia, I believe, I've been hearing there is a nursery there.
I'm not sure the name of it but yeah, that's something we've started our own stool beds because that's something that I really want. I would like for us to have at some point is to have our own rootstock grown in our own spot off our own land. If you just do a Google search, Nova Scotia fruit tree nursery selling rootstock, you'll probably find the right one.
And I'm going to tell you that I think it's Maple Grove nursery dot C A. They are growing some Canadian some rootstock that people can use. So thank you so much for your question.
So I said in my introduction that you can grow an apple tree from seed, but it's not going to be true to seed.
[00:05:03] Basics of Grafting: Rootstock and Scion
So a grafted tree is made up of two pieces. One of the pieces is called a rootstock. Can you tell me what is a rootstock and what does it contribute to the final tree?
It depends. There's two different types of rootstocks. Rootstocks that are grown from seed and rootstocks that are clonally propagated so the seedlings will have a bit of variation with your end product just by the nature of it being a seedling, whereas your clonally propagated rootstock, you're going to have completely consistent results.
And the rootstock essentially is what it sounds like. It's the root part of the tree, and it's typically four to six inches above ground is where your graft union and that's the site at which you would graft the two pieces together. So your rootstock consists of a bit of trunk and then all the roots below.
So that's part one. So now you take part two. Part two is the scion. So tell me what is the scion and how is that different. So the scion, it's one year growth. So the tip end of a branch, and the scion is going to be the cultivar, which is a cultivated variety or it can be a wild variety too for that matter.
But the scion is going to be the variety that you want the tree to grow into and produce fruit. For example, Honeycrisp or Gala or whatnot.
[00:06:29] Grafting Techniques and Challenges
Okay, so there you are at Silver Creek Nursery. How many fruit trees a year are you grafting these days? So it'll be between myself and two people who help for the most part with grafting.
So the three of us collectively in a year, we'll graft anywhere from 17, 000 to 20, I think this past year we did 24, 000, which is the biggest in terms of scale. We are a small scale nursery. There's nurseries out there that are grafting hundreds of thousands of trees so we're just little peanuts, but, yeah, that's roughly the scale that we are.
So 24, 000. Lots of trees and how many different cultivars or varieties of fruits would you be doing in that amount. There's around 150 different apples and they're mainly on three different rootstocks. We do, I guess it's about five, maybe, apple rootstocks all together, but for the most part, they're on either dwarf or semi dwarf, between three, M 106, B9, and B118, So that's the apples.
Pears, there's, I believe about maybe about 30 varieties of pears. Cherries is about 10. Apricots and plums, that'd be about 15 to 20. And peaches for us are always a bit experimental because we have, in the spring, when the bud starts to grow from being grafted. Because you get that freeze thaw, what we've experienced is having issues. The bud will push and grow and then a frost comes and freezes it off and kills that. So that's one thing. We're trying some different techniques to try and mitigate that loss that way. But yeah, that's the collective number of plants would be around over 200 cultivars, I would say.
Amazing. Okay.
[00:08:29] Listener Questions and Expert Advice: Why graft, and grafting for small spaces
We got a couple of emails here, Steph. So let's have a look. One of them is from Michael. Michael writes, I'm writing from Parry Sound, Ontario. Love Susan's podcasts. I love growing fruit trees and love the idea of grafting. But for the average person, I'm wondering what they do with all their grafts ? Most people only have so much room for trees. I feel like people can only graft so much before running out of room. What options are there? What a great question, Michael. Definitely. I still would recommend, even for the home grower, even if you've got three trees, it's still a great skill to have.
The reason being, for example, it's a really windy day, and your tree snaps off at the graft union, which is absolutely unfortunate, but that can totally happen. You can regraft your tree if that happens, depending what time of year, you could even use that growth that has snapped off.
If you want more varieties or more pollination options or things like that, you can directly graft onto your existing trees, which is really fun to do sometimes to have a franken tree with 10 different varieties on it or whatever. There's a certain point where practicality comes into play for a more large scale situation, but for your home orchard, it's fun to have those different options.
I think all of those are great ideas. For instance, Steph and I are going to be working on one tree in our orchard that was vandalized, I think, or broken down somehow. And I let the rootstock grow. This is the Asian pear in our orchard. And so there's a lot of sprouts coming from that Asian pear and I'm thinking, Okay, I guess we'll dig it out this year.
And Steph is saying no, we will graft those. So I hear you on that. I wish we had so much space. I could graft lots of new trees but, yeah, we can use the trees we have. And the other thing that I hope to be doing with newly grafted trees is giving them to people, neighbors and friends and school.
Spreading the love. So thank you for that question. We've also got a comment here from Dave listening from Toronto. Hello, happy belated Family Day to you. Thanks for the show today. I was very looking forward to it. So that's wonderful.
[00:10:54] Advanced Grafting Tips and Tricks
Okay, so we know that our new trees are made up of two pieces.
And they've got the rootstock. Now from a previous question, we know that you if you're making a standalone tree, not grafting onto your existing tree, you will have to buy that rootstock from somewhere. Here in Canada, there are sources in the United States. I know I've got a lot of listeners in the States.
You can also buy that. But in terms of the scionwood, where do you get your scionwood from, whether it's somebody like you, Steph, who does this professionally or, somebody like me, who wants to get some scionwood from the neighborhood somehow. So in that case,
we have two test orchards now. They're both about an acre and there's over 500 cultivars we have in there that are just in testing and also for propagation use. So having, just word of mouth, sometimes knowing somebody, you can get a cutting. Generally speaking, a cutting is just a stick so it's not like it's this challenging thing to get. It's more knowing the right people to ask, ultimately. Larger scale operations, there's Summerland Varieties, which is in BC, and they would have, if you're looking to graft hundreds of trees or more, they would be a good source for scionwood or budwood.
And just on that, budwood and scionwood are essentially the same thing. They're that one year growth of the tree, but the scionwood is the dormant version of it, and budwood is what we would use in the summer in August, so it's not dormant. Other sources, Bill O'Keefe in Ontario, he's got an amazing old heritage orchard with tons of different varieties in it, he would be an excellent resource to get scionwood from.
And yeah, even just asking around different people who you know might have fruit trees, trading scions, is totally a common thing to do. Okay, so I know that, for instance, let's say a neighbor has a fabulous, maybe an heirloom apple tree and I want to graft a branch onto my tree. What time of year would I collect the scionwood and how do I keep it until it's time to graft the new tree?
[00:13:13] Timing and Storage for Successful Grafting
So that will depend on the main two seasons for grafting in our climate, would be either in spring, so that'd be late spring. You'd want to collect while the plant is still dormant, or you'd want to do it in summer and that would be around August, for specifically for Southern Ontario, or I guess zone five is what we're listed under, so in that timeframe. I know down south of us, earlier in the summer, you'd be looking more at like July rather than going into August, but, that's the trickiest because the budwood needs to be ripe, so to speak, whereas in the winter your wood's much easier to handle.
It's not going to dry out as fast when you cut it. It's a lot more foolproof. Whereas in summer having fresh budwood is so important to having your grafting take. Generally, what I'd recommend, especially if you're new at it, is sticking with the spring grafting, just because it's easier, there's less things to go wrong, basically. So that would be cutting it typically late February or March is generally a safe time, but definitely before the buds start to swell and any dormancy is broken. You want to collect when everything is fully dormant. Okay, so there I am, I've got my hand pruners, I go out and I snip off some branches, just the new growth, not going back so far that the branch is so woody.
I want the tender new growth. I'm going to snip off branches. And where do I keep them? I know that you're supposed to refrigerate them and I've done that before. Guess what? I put it in the fridge where I have apples and whatever all sorts of other stuff and somehow it didn't work. So there is a trick to keeping your scionwood fresh until it's time to graft it.
And what is that trick? We just put ours in cold storage since we have that, but I have heard people heeling it in the ground. you want to keep it cool and dark. maybe that'd be the trick you were, would be referring to. It could be, or just not putting it in the fridge with your apples.
Because that fruit and vegetables exude gas that, that I don't know what it does, but it's not good for scionwood. I think it makes the buds go permanently dormant. That's what I've been told. We haven't really tested that theory, but yeah, we just play it safe. If there's any food stuff like that stays in a separate fridge than any propagation material just to be on the safe side.
I guess if you have a beer fridge in the basement or something. You know that there's nothing in there but your scionwood. Do you need to wrap it up and keep it moist or that doesn't really matter? Yes. You'll want to keep it moist, but you don't want it to mold. So what we do is take newspaper, dip it in water.
You don't want it fully saturated, that it's a soggy layer of newspaper. It should just be lightly moistened. And we would always label it. As soon as you get it cut, label, wrap it up in that damp newspaper and put it in a bag, a plastic bag. So you seal the moisture in.
But if you do that, definitely check, especially if you haven't done this before, check it in a week and then check it in two or three weeks. You want the wood to stay moist, but definitely no mold. So yeah. Definitely check it, the first couple of times you're storing scionwood. If your wood goes moldy, then that's no good.
And if your wood dries out, that's also no good. Yeah, those are the two key things you want to look out for. Okay, so now a couple more questions we've got here. One from London, Ontario, from John. Hi Susan, great show as usual. I'm a big fan of Silver Creek Nursery. What semi dwarf rootstock would Steph recommend for the Peterborough area?
I understand different rootstocks have different characteristics. Yes, for sure. I'm wondering, this might be John Enright. If so, hello. So for Peterborough, I would recommend, you'd be fine with EMLA 106 or B 118. The main differences between the two is B 118, I always recommend for zone three or more hardy, so colder.
It tends to be a larger tree. But in the southern climates and especially with sandier soils, I know down in Michigan, I have an uncle who has an orchard and he has no patience for B 1 18 because he finds that when it's warmer that way, the tree has so much vegetative growth, he doesn't get the fruit production off of it, and also runs into some issues with root rot, so that's Phytophthora. And that depends a little bit on everybody's soil situations and everything. But, ML106 is really nice, it's got really good graft compatibility. It's very versatile with what soil it's in and B 118 is as well.
But just because in Peterborough, you'd probably be a zone four at the coldest, I would think, so then I would say probably the M106 will be your sort of best option. That's probably what I would go with. And I've got to apologize to all the listeners who are annoyed that the names of all these rootstocks are so boring, M this B that, but they're just different names for rootstocks with different qualities.
Some are better for Sandy soil. Some are better for clay soil. So I apologize on behalf of the scientists that named those rootstocks. So it's not Steph's fault. We're not gonna blame her. We've got a question from Grant. Hello. I'm new to all of this. What is a cultivar? What is a cultivar? A cultivar is simply a cultivated variety.
So for example, if you look and find an apple tree in the wild, that is not a cultivated variety, whereas, Honeycrisp, Golden Russet, Grimes Golden. There's many cultivars, like hundreds of cultivars, and that's just a variety that is in cultivation. As soon as you propagate it and cultivate it, then it becomes a cultivar.
Exactly. And also if you have let's say you find a wild apple tree and the apple is fantastic and you know it's wild, you can become rich because you'll graft the branches onto other trees. You'll name it after yourself, like Bob's apple tree or whatever, and it'll be the next Honeycrisp. Anyways.
Okay. Bunch more questions, this one is from Lisa. Have you ever grafted fruit tree stalk to street tree or shade trees. Is it possible? What a great question. and so Lisa's from New Jersey. Okay. Can you answer that question for us?
[00:20:14] Species Compatibility and Guerrilla Grafting
Absolutely. So, that's where you're going to need to have your species matching up. So if you have a street apple tree, then in theory, yes, you could graft apple onto that. If you have a shade tree, say maple tree, and you try and graft apple onto that, it won't take, the tissues won't callous together and it just won't work. So general rule of thumb, within species almost always works. there's a few different outlying situations where that doesn't always work or there's less graft compatibility I guess I could say.
On the flip side, there are certain species that you can mix. So there's sometimes apples and pears randomly will work. Quince is often used for a pear rootstock. Conversely, Bartlett, which is a very common pair variety, probably most of you know. If you try and graft a Bartlett pear directly onto quince rootstock, it will not work. So you have to put Old Home, which is another pear variety as an interstem. So you have your quince rootstock, your Old Home interstem, and then your Bartlett on top.
There's ways around, sometimes. To the question of can you graft directly onto the street tree? If the species, match most likely. If they don't match? No, not so much. Such a great question. And also, I live near a ravine and there are some wild apple trees in the ravine.
So that's a great place for guerrilla grafting. You can take some branches, branch them on to the crab apple trees or whatever in the ravine. Fabulous question. Okay. Bunch more questions. Next one is Chris writes from Kent, the garden of England, UK. so Chris writes, hi, Susan. I have stooled some M 9 rootstock in preparation for grafting.
Basically from a few failed grafts from last year. In your guest's opinion, am I better grafting in the spring or letting them grow for another year and bud grafting this autumn? Also, if I graft in the spring, is it better to wait for the sap to start rising, i. e. seeing the rootstock bud swelling slightly, or does this not make any difference?
So Chris is really talking about timing for grafting. So what is your recommendation, Steph? It would depend. So for the first part of this, initially, it would depend on the size the stools. I'm assuming your stool bed, you've probably got shoots coming up now and they're probably about a pencil diameter thickness if it's just this first year that you've got the stools going.
In this case, I would say you're going to want to harvest the stool beds first, I'm assuming, so that you don't have a clump of shoots coming up. So in that case, I would say you're going to want to harvest those suckers which become rootstock. But you're going to do that when it's dormant. I wouldn't recommend doing that in the middle of the growing season. That's just going to be really stressful on the rootstocks. So generally, a pencil thickness size or bigger is ideal for grafting, and if it's much over even at three quarters of an inch, it's really not. It's chunky and clunky and you can grasp that size, but handling is more challenging. so I would say it depends ultimately on your stool bed's diameter currently. If you think you can, if they're at a nice size to graft, then I would say go ahead.
You're going to want to cut them off under the medium that you're growing them in, since you've got your nice portion of roots as well as your portion of trunk, and then you could go ahead and graft them now. There's different ways of doing it for sure. And you could even chip bud them.
You could leave them exactly as is, let them grow, chip bud them in summer. Just consider your trees, your diameter of your rootstock of those suckers are going to get bigger each season, so you want to hit it at the sweet spot that they're the right size for you for the method that you're grafting, which quarter of an inch, which would be about a centimeter thereabouts, is great. Cause you want to match up the material that you're going to be grafting onto. So you want to match the scions, is the ultimate. So there's a whole other rabbit hole you could go down where if you're grafting from a really old tree that has run down, it might have poor vigor, your scions might be more spindly, so it might actually be nicer to graft them now while the shoots are a bit slimmer, perhaps, depending on your situation.
[00:24:57] Advanced Rootstock Techniques
So Chris is a little more advanced because he's not buying in his rootstock. This stool bed is made up of rootstocks he's growing out himself.
So he's a little bit more advanced, but it's all like a jigsaw puzzle, isn't it? Getting the right timing, getting everything so it all jives together.
[00:25:15] Grafting Questions from Viewers: Utilizing rootstocks for grafting purposes and bench grafting
We have a question here from Lisa. Lisa says you mentioned using the sprouts from your Asian pear to graft. I'm a little confused. Are the sprouts coming up actual Asian pears or are they just rootstock suitable for the use as a graft for other fruits?
And Lisa, so my answer is yes, our Asian pear tree broke but the rootstock remained in the ground and it shot up some sprouts. Some skinny little sprouts, and we just worked around it, and we did other things. No pears on them. It's a rootstock. Often rootstocks, if they do produce fruit, you don't really want to eat it anyway, it wouldn't be very good.
And the idea that Steph said to me was, hey, this rootstock's been in the ground for quite a few years, this is a good strong tree. So it might be really good to actually be grafting onto that rootstock. Have I got that right, Steph? Yeah, exactly. So we got two more questions. Hello, Susan and Stephanie. This is from Jazz from Sudbury, Ontario. Hello, Susan and Stephanie. Fantastic information today. Just saying hello. Okay, and one more question. This is from Douglas. Hi, what kind of bench graft do you prefer?
So that's Douglas's question. What would you say, to Douglas? I would say whip and tongue is a nice, easygoing grafting method for bench grafting. There again, it can depend on the situation.
Short answer, bench grafting would be my go to for most anything. All right, super.
[00:26:51] Why People Graft: Viewer Insights
I just wanted to say that on Facebook, there were so many fantastic comments about why people graft. I just wanted to share a couple of them. Why do people do it? And this goes back to, I think it was Michael's question.
So here we have Art from Minnesota. He writes, grafting allows me to grow obscure varieties. There's also something special about eating an apple from a tree you planted, much like catching a fish on a homemade fly or lure. The trees we graft ourselves are special, at least for us home orchard people with only a few trees.
And Glenda in Vancouver Island writes, I love that a special tree can be propagated, whether the variety is known or not. It could be an unknown variety or seedling that someone's grandfather treasured with really good qualities. And of course, preserving diversity is a great thing. Imagine just being stuck with supermarket varieties.
Henry from central Wisconsin says grafting is a lot cheaper than buying a three year old tree. And then, Steve's comment was interesting. He says grafting opens up tons of options. If a variety doesn't suit you, you can top work it with others that suit you better and get fruit in half the time versus planting a brand new young tree. Grafting allows you to select amongst thousands of apple varieties. And Steve says, on pawpaws, I graft two or three different varieties into the tops of each tree to assist pollination, because that can be iffy with pawpaws.
[00:28:30] Bench Grafting Explained
Steph, we have talked about some basics. I want to go into bench grafting.
What is bench grafting exactly? Bench grafting, it's done typically at a bench, as the name suggests, and it's done with dormant materials. There are different types of bench grafting. Whip and tongue is typically the most common. But, essentially bench grafting is done with dormant stock and often, as whip and tongue is considered a type of bench grafting, and you can graft whip and tongue directly onto a tree, it's not conclusive to say bench grafting is only ever done at a bench, but it often is done at a bench.
[00:29:14] Whip and Tongue Grafting: A Step-by-Step Guide
So we're talking about, you mentioned whip and tongue grafting, a very scary name for something that actually, when you think about it, it's simple. it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Again, I mentioned that earlier. So how do you describe what whip and tongue grafting is? What are you trying to do?
Essentially what you're trying to do, is cut the material to expose the inner layers of the tree, there's the bark and then the cambium is inside the bark and then you have the woody tissue inside that and then the pith in the very center. So you want to make a diagonal cut across the pieces of material, the rootstock and the scion, and that cut will expose those surfaces.
Cell division, the cambium, produces cells that will divide and form callous tissue, which will then heal the two cut surfaces together to become one tree, basically. okay, so basically you're going to have two pieces of tree, you've got your rootstock you've got your scionwood and they have to have a matching cut.
One is inverted or something, definitely like a jigsaw puzzle. So that's a skill that you need to learn in order to do that.
[00:30:37] Tools and Tips for Successful Grafting
What tools do you need in order to do that jigsaw cut? Is it enough to just have a good sharp, knife? Does any knife work? ideally a single bevel knife is preferred, but it's not mandatory.
The most important thing is to have a very sharp knife. Say you get a brand new knife, still sharpen it, and just get it razor sharp. And then you're going to find your cuts are much easier to do. They'll be much smoother. You'll be able to move through the wood better and you'll have better chance of success. So really having a sharp blade is key.
Okay, so with whip and tongue, let's say I imagine inside my mind's eye, let's say one of the cuts is a V and another like a U shape and they slide together. Is it possible to do some sort of bench graft where each cut is just an angle, why do you need the tongue sticking out?
Yeah. You definitely can do just the whip without the tongue. The tongue just adds a huge amount of stability. That's actually one way how we used to graft was just doing that whip and then tying it together just the diagonal cut. However, we actually are this year going to start switching and adding that tongue in just because it adds so much stability and it's a bit more surface area for callous tissue to form on and it creates a slightly stronger graft at the end of the day. It's very strong just doing the whip like that.
That's totally acceptable, but for handling it and wrapping it afterwards, it's much easier with the tongue there because, it will basically create when you interlock them together, they'll hold whether your fingers are holding it or not, if you've done it correctly. So that really makes the graft a lot more sturdy.
Okay. So you've got your two pieces. They fit together perfectly because of course you've done your perfect cut. They'll fall apart. How do you stick these pieces together so that they stay until they grow together to become one tree to fuse into one tree.
[00:32:42] Handling and Wrapping Grafts
So that's the second part of grafting, and this is with pretty much any type of cuts, you want to wrap it with something. This is partly to help hold it securely, but it also helps to keep excess moisture, if it rains on your graft, you don't want that water getting in between anything. You want that completely to just shut off, and you don't want any bacteria, wind, dust, you want to keep as clean as an environment around the graft site union as possible.
So there's different things you can wrap the graft with, you can use anything as basic as an elastic cut in half, any type of elastic virtually, that's made out of natural rubber, cut it so that it's just one string, basically, and then you can use that to bind, twist around the cut site, the graft union, and hold them together, then you would apply grafting wax, which would seal the nooks and crannies, and that would be an option that way.
However, what we've moved to, is using body tape. So it's a biodegradable, very stretchy picture saran wrap or something like that, but much stretchier than saran wrap. And you wrap that around the tree and the brand that we use is biodegradable so it does just come off after about a year, which is great.
If you don't have a biodegradable material that you're using, elastics included, you want to make sure that you remove that wrapping because it can girdle the tree. So check the graft, a graft typically takes in warm weather, about two weeks, to form that initial layer of callousing, but it does take a little longer for it to harden off fully. I wouldn't recommend taking the wrapping off just in case you bump it. I would just give it, about two months. After two months, it'll have hardened well enough that you can safely, or mid summer, you can remove the wrapping, whatever it be, the elastic and wax or the body tape, and let it grow from there.
Or if you use biodegradable, still check it. It's good to always double check and just make sure that there's nothing constraining growth. You want to make sure that the tree can grow and expand naturally.
Okay, so we got some questions here. This one is from Chris from the UK. Okay, so hi Susan. Loving your show.
[00:35:00] Rootstock and Replant Disease
Is there a suitable rootstock that gets around the issue of replant disease? I would like to replace some trees in an old orchard that is well past their prime, 60 plus years. So a bunch of old trees in an orchard. Ideally, I would like to have a tree that would be easily pickable, but not have to permanently stake them.
Any suggestions? So this is for rootstock to plant in an old orchard for a pickable tree. So it sounds like Chris is looking for maybe a dwarfing tree, but something that doesn't need staking. If you're looking for a dwarf and tree that doesn't need staking, EMLA 26 would be your best option. A stake won't hurt it. It's a big dwarf and a small sunny dwarf. It's right in the middle there. Otherwise something like, EMLA 106 is my go to what I recommend. However, the UK climate, I would actually recommend talking to a nursery or grower in your area to get a better idea that way.
As to replant disease. I don't know of any rootstocks that are particularly outstanding in that area. What I would be inclined to do, is really focus on boosting your soil health. Your soil will break down the bad guys. It'll get more of the good guys. If you can just load it with all kinds of beneficials and really focus on soil health, then you should be able to replant trees and they should be healthy. I think that's such a great suggestion, and in an earlier show we talked about some foliar sprays that you can do by spraying your trees, you're actually helping to enhance the soil so go back to that episode of the urban forestry radio show about foliar sprays that might also help this old orchard.
The next message you're going to love stuff. It's from Mason and Mason's done in big, beautiful letters. Thank you. Silver Creek. Thank you for being a sponsor. That's so nice Mason. I so appreciate that. That's from the listeners. He's representing all our listeners.
now we've got an email here from Dot in Stratford. Hi all. Thanks for the show. It was a very wet summer and a couple of my self grafted trees from your workshop from a few years ago had the stem trunk fall over at the end of the summer. Is it root rot? Can I save them or do I need to just start over?
If it's root rot, then the tree will be dying from the ground up. You should be able to scratch right at the ground level, and you scratch that first layer of bark off, and there should be bright, green cambium. That's the cell division and that's a very important layer, that cambium layer.
If it's just brown and black, then what's going to happen in spring, your trees still might leaf out as the energy comes up and moves out throughout the branches, and it'll just have that one last burst of energy, and then that's going to be it.
If it's green, you should be okay. If it's brown, or even slightly discolored and it's at the base of the tree then likely is a root rot. And in that case, I would say if the top of the tree is still nice and plump, if the cambium layer is green, you should be fine to use that material.
And then I would say change your planting location for sure. Just something with a little bit better draining of soil. Or, you can always try and work with the soil you've got, but that's a little more challenging. And actually, Susan has a great course that I would recommend, trying out for that.
We've been talking about bench grafting, we've been talking about whip and tongue grafting. In a previous conversation Steph, you and I were chatting about the scion.
[00:38:47] Scion Length and Energy Management
You've got your rootstock or you've got your existing tree you're grafting onto. What surprised me was the length of the scion that you actually need. There's a part of me that thinks, oh, a longer piece is better. So I'm cutting a piece from a fruiting tree that I like. So let's say it is a Mcintosh apple tree. I cut a piece that's maybe as long as a pencil. I'm going to graft that on to my existing tree or to my rootstock. But you surprised me as to how long the ideal length of that piece of scion. How long should it be? Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Sure. Ultimately you want between one and three buds. I know there's some varieties, the buds will be spaced out longer and some of the buds will be an inch or three centimetres together or tighter. How many buds you're getting, it's your ultimate decision of length, but that typically ends up being about, maybe five, between five and 8 cm or 2 3 inches thereabouts. If you were really tight on scionwood and you have a prized variety and you're desperately trying to get as many trees out of it, you can take just one bud. Even if you have a bud that is on the other side of your cut angle, that is a viable bud. I don't recommend necessarily banking on that all the time, just because when you're wrapping it, you're going to be covering it up, and it's going to have to fight through layers to get out.
So I tend not to count buds like that, but they do end up often growing for us when we go back through and have to prune all the little suckers off the side. So short answer is about two to three inches or five to eight centimeters or ultimately you want one to three buds.
If you have more than three buds, that's not a good thing either though. So you don't want your scion to be too long. The reason being, that little chunk of wood has a certain amount of energy in it. And if you have a really long scionwood, all those buds are going to be pushing and using up that energy really fast in spring. And, what can happen is it'll actually deplete the energy source stored in the scionwood before the tissues fully callous and the fluids from the rootstock, before the graft fully heals and becomes one tree. And you can actually end up having the top part of your tree expend all that energy and dry up because it doesn't have enough energy quick enough to support all those excess of buds. So that's why you want to keep it topped up at no more than three buds. Generally our rule.
Amazing. So I thinking of it like, okay. You have a family. If you have three children, each child is going to need to go to school. They're going to need lunches. They're going to need whatever higher education. If you've got one kid, you can put all the energy into that one kid. They get more money for education. They can get better lunches.
I don't know, whatever, but maybe that's what it is. The fewer buds, then you are banking on, you've got less chances in a way, but one or two buds left, get the energy that's there. And I find that really fascinating that a little tiny little piece of branch from a tree that produces yummy fruit will eventually grow into this huge trunk for a full size tree that will feed you and your family for generations to come.
That's amazing. Isn't that amazing? Or is this just me? Definitely. Absolutely. I think it's fantastic.
[00:42:32] The Joy of Grafting
You've been doing this now for a good few years. Do you still find it exciting? Is it fun for you? It's relaxing. It's so peaceful. Running the business and doing all the organizing. Oh, blah, blah, blah. Like it just goes on and on. But if I can have a day where I just sit and graft all day, it's wonderful. Like you just relax into it and get a flow going. It's really nice. I would say it's fun adding new varieties. I've actually, between this year and last year, 2020 and 2021, I've added over 150 new varieties to the test orchard. It's so fun and it's almost addictive to try all these different old, and some of them new, varieties of fruit. But the actual act of grafting, I find to just be satisfying. It's relaxing and it's nice. It's a very nice pastime. It's your happy place. Yeah, happy place. So one more question has come through.
[00:43:30] Grafting Timing and Kits
This is from Mike from Hammond, Ontario. I have a question about the timing of grafting. When would be the latest a tree can be grafted in a year? So the latest window for grafting a fruit tree. So there you'd be looking at, usually by the second week of September. That pretty much is the cutoff. And I would only leave apples and pears that late. The reason being they're a little bit tougher and generally they're a little easier to graft than some of the stone fruits, but you want to have at least two weeks for the tree, for the graft, to callous before you've got frost and stuff like that. So if it's already cooling off, early September and you're starting to see more cool weather, then the sooner the better for sure. But I know in the past actually, one of Ken's last years budding, I think it was like the second week of September he was budding, and that's about as late as we've ever tried it. Generally, I recommend sticking with August.
So for folks who are keen to try this, they, we've, demystified it a little bit. I understand that you have a grafting kit where they can buy like a knife, some grafting tape. What's in that kit and how much would that cost at Silver Creek Nursery?
It costs around 50. If you go onto our website, which is just silvercreeknursery. ca and type in the little search icon at the on the right top corner and type grafting kit, you'll find It. It has a little handout that, actually I'm working on updating, to include a bit more information. But it has a handout that has basically how to graft, and explains the different options that you have. It has grafting knife and it has budding tape. if you're doing chip budding, so that's the summer grafting, then you would use a different, you'd still use the same knife. You would just use a different, a different fastener, so to speak, a different thing to hold the grafted material in place, which you can always email in and if you have questions and ask and we can help direct you to it and we have the summer, grafting rubbers, I guess is what we call them. But we sell those as well on the side so you could tailor it to what you're needing. And they're grafting, wrapping like the budding tape or the grafting rubbers are both very economical, like they're, I think, under 5 dollars for 50 rubbers or whatever. So they go quite a long ways. So you can always get whatever you need. If you need something different than what the kit has.
[00:46:11] Show Wrap-Up and Additional Resources
Steph, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I really appreciate it. And, I continue to look forward to learning with you about grafting.
I hope you had fun on the show. Oh, yes, definitely. That was awesome. I really enjoyed that. And, again, too, for, others, if there are any questions, I'm always happy to answer them. You can just shoot me an email, Steph at silvercreeknursery. ca. Feel free to get in touch if there's any other questions anybody has.
Fantastic. So that of course is the one and only Steph Roth of Silver Creek Nursery in Ontario. So did you enjoy the show today? If you want to listen again or download a previous episode, all you have to do is go to orchardpeople. com slash podcast. And if you're interested in grafting, you may also. I also want to check out episode number 45, where I chat with Sam Van Aken, the creator of the Tree of 40 Fruits.
He's an artist and grafting enthusiast. He's a very interesting person as well. Also, did you know that I also post videos with edited versions of these shows? you can find them on Orchard People's YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to get access to the new videos right away. And in the next few days, I'm going to do an excerpt of this radio show, a 10 minute excerpt.
So you'll be able to see Steph and I talking. We'll have some visuals to show you, and that'll be fun. So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I hope you'll join me again next month. We are going to have another great topic. And in the meantime, take care. I'll see you then. Have a great month everybody.
Bye for now.