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Bud Grafting

Hill, who has been grafting apples for over 50 years, showed me the basics - and it seems easy. Much easier to do than the cleft or slip grafting I've done in the spring - though I should reserve judgment until I see the results of my handiwork next year. One of the nice things about bud grafting is that you can see within a week or two if your graft has taken or not. If it dries up and looks lifeless, you can try again up until the bark no longer "slips" (lifts easily when sliced) - perhaps until mid-September.

Grafting is a form of surgery: inserting a bit of growing material from one into another in order to change the growth or fruiting habits of a plant. And it's not just for fruit trees - Hill has grafted buds onto a lilac so that it produces blossoms in shades of red, white and blue.

Bud grafting involves grafting a leaf bud (the little lump that becomes a leaf next spring) from one tree to another. By the first of August the next year's leaf buds have been formed, though they are not always obvious to the untrained eye. Amazingly, a grafted leaf bud can develop into a branch that will bear fruit just like the tree it came from.

The first step is to select a donor tree with desirable characteristics that you'd like to impart on the stock tree that will receive the graft. Cut some twigs or "bud sticks" from the donor tree. You'll need to select bud sticks from this year's growth, which has greenish bark - older bark is brown - and is at the tips of branches. Cut bud sticks that are 8-12 inches long and about the thickness of pencils. Place them in a jar of water overnight.

Next, select a branch on the stock tree about the diameter of your little finger. Then find a spot between two leaves to operate on. Using a sharp knife (How's that for an excuse to buy a new Swiss Army knife?) cut a "T" in the bark in preparation for inserting a bud. Press down firmly so that the knife slices through the bark, and hits wood. The cross bar of the T should cross the axis of the branch. The T needs to be about three quarters of an inch long and a half an inch wide - big enough to accommodate the little shield-shaped piece of bark with the bud you are about to prepare and introduce. Using the tip of your knife, lift up the bark a little. It should slip or lift up easily.

To prepare the bud you wish to graft, snip off a leaf on a bud stick, leaving a half-inch piece of stem to serve as a handle. Next, slice though the bark just past a leaf stem (farther out the branch toward the tip) - just as you did when preparing the crossbar of the T on the stock branch. Then, from the other side of the bud, cut under the leaf handle, removing the bud - along with some wood and bark. It should be a shield-shaped, about three quarters of an inch long.

Pry up the bark on your stock tree with your knife, and slide your bud into place. Try not to touch the edges or cut surface of the piece you are inserting. Make sure the bud is pointing the same direction it was on the donor tree.

Lastly, you need to seal off the cut surfaces by wrapping the incisions with a budding strip - much as you would wrap a sprained thumb with an ace bandage. That keeps the graft in place and prevents the bud from drying out. Budding strips are like strips of thin rubber band, but disintegrate over the winter. They are available from specialty companies like Raintree Nursery (360-496-6400). Twenty strips cost about $2. Don't cover up the leaf handle, or the bud that is in the crevice between it and the branch. You can tape it, but will have to remove the tape after the graft has taken. Nothing much will happen until next spring, when the grafted bud should begin to grow. Prune off everything past the new bud on the branch, and it will take over. The new twig on the stock tree eventually will produce flowers or fruit much like the donor tree. The stock tree can influence the characteristics of the fruit on grafted branches, but not much.

When it comes to grafting, there are no guarantees of success. But it's a quick project that won't cost you much, and you might be able to add more flavors to one of your existing trees. It just means getting out of the hammock to try something new. To me, it's worth the effort. And there just might be an apple pie at the end of the rainbow.

Henry Homeyer is the VT/NH associate editor of "People, Places and Plants" magazine. Write him at gardening.guy@valley.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746.