I'd like to learn someday. Anyone ever graft fruit trees?

They used to do acres and acres of apple orchards around here. Cut the tree down to a two foot stump, tape a few twigs around the top, and in less time to grow a producing tree, you have an orchard of a different variety.

My grandfather was very well known for his orchard. I remember one apple tree that had 3 varieties of apples on it, the result of his having grafted to it. I went through the Master Gardener course here in Kentucky, and we had a short course in grafting. Looked pretty easy, but I've never tried it myself.

Not fruit, but nut. I have tried a couple of years by 2 different methods to graft pecans, with not one graft taking. I have a lot of volunteer pecans to work with, but have had no luck grafting Stewart grafts to them. I follow instructions as best I know how, with no luck . Any ideas that would help, would be appreciated. miles

Miles, we used to" bud" pecan trees for Wolfe's Nursery .Involved the native volunteer and desired type of pecan you want being 1\2 to 1in.thick. Spring or fall, the bark should be slippy if kept moist. Transfers a single bud, several places on the native. We used a double bladed budding knife.

You can bud in the fall? miles

Late July-Aug. would have been right for me since I was on highschool summer break.

I agree, t-budding is way simpler and easier than grafting. My brother and I would t-bud close to 1,000 apple trees a day as a team, he would make the cut and slip the bud in, and I would rubber band and keep him in shoots to cut buds off of. It was a nice little business until every Tom, Dick and Harry decided there was money in raising fruit trees.

I doubt we could do more than 50 trees a day, grafting.