Last Winter’s Grafting Update

Old Merrybower graft

I thought it might be useful to show what the grafted apple trees look like 6 months after the deed was done.

Old Merrybower graft closeup

Both of these varieties – the Old Merrybower and Beeley Pippin – were grafted using the whip and tongue method. Scion wood was taken from the donor tree whilst it was dormant, in winter. In these cases, the Old Merrybower was one of the last standard trees in the old orchard at Merrybower Farm, and had fallen down through a combination of very water-logged soil and extremely strong winds. We call it Old Merrybower as it’s likely around 100 years old, according to old maps, and we have absolutely no idea of the variety. The second graft used scion wood cut from a Beeley Pippin we already had, but which the geese had managed to ring-bark. Despite the ring-barking happening in late summer and the tree had already started to die back, the growing ends had enough life in them to survive the autumn, and we managed to cut them and use them to graft five new Beeley Pippin trees.

As you can see, the MM106 rootstock we used for both trees were from a different supplier, as we didn’t plan on trying to save the Old Merrybower tree, as it was well and truly planted in the ground when we put our order in. The Beeley Pippin graft is much neater – the scion wood was a perfect match in diameter to the rootstock, and we could graft at a good height from the soil level – around six inches.

Beeley Pippin graft

The Old Merrybower, however, had to make do with the only MM106 rootstock we could get hold of at short notice, and it was fairly thick in diameter compared to the scion wood we needed to graft to it. For this reason we moved the graft quite far up the rootstock, and even then we only managed to get the cambium layer (the extremely thin vascular cambium tissues that are as yet undecided as to what type of cell they will become – stem cells if you will) to touch from each donor tree, on one side rather than two. That said, all five grafts of the Old Merrybower were successful, which heartened me no end to my grafting skills!

Beeley Pippin graft closeup

Looking at the closeups of the grafts, you can see the Old Merrybower is a bit messy, but the Beeley Pippin is a lovely graft, the zig-zag between scion and rootstock showing quite clearly – a bit like a Harry Potter scar.

We’ve donated one of each to the local village and their secret garden scheme, and Merrybower Farm will also get one of each, to replace the fallen tree. We’ll then find homes in our orchard for the other six – I think we can just about fit them in as we have a spare plot in the small orchard, and the last small cherry tree doesn’t look particularly well either.