Cloning

Since the fruit tree planting project is about done for the year, 57 planted in the community for shared use plus about a dozen here, I'm ready to move on and excited about preparing grafts for next year's plantings.

I visited several "old apple guys" as I think of them, their orchards full of established trees grafted many times over and collected one year old scion wood of their favorites for the purpose of grafting onto rootstock. It's an old trick to assure that the roots are strong and disease resistant and the fruit is what you expect it to be, a clone of the apple you want. If you just plant an apple seed it's a big gamble in time because you don't know what the pollination cross will produce and it could be great or bleh.

After procuring the rootstock, a bit of a challenge in itself at this late date, I had to learn the technique involved in the process. I saw it done once, watched some old guys on Youtube, and then took my extremely sharp little knife to the work shop with all the stuff and began as they say to make a "strong and confident" diagonal pull on the wood stems toward myself. After proceeding cautiously and slowly I am just beginning to appreciate how the wood responds to the tool and how the pieces are needed to be shaped to get the best alignment of cambium.

Now to plant out and wait some time to see if anything buds and grows.