Need help with grafting from a Mature Discovery Apple tree

Hello Discoverer and welcome to the Grapevine.
How old is the tree? Photos would help to assess its potential.

Hi veggiechicken,

The tree we ll be around 30 years old. I don't have any pictures but will have one ASAP if it helps!

I'm going to move your thread over to "Feeling Fruity" where the Fruit experts are most likely to see this and advise you. I know they'll want to see photos

Yes, if you took some strong-growing young shoots from the tree and grafted them onto a piece of rootstock (either purchased from a nursery for a few £, or grown from a seed) you could then continue to get the same type of fruit.

However, Discovery trees are very common and can be found all over the place and you can buy one from a discount store for about £4-10 if you wait until late winter, or you might find one in a garden centre for £10-15 right now. Make sure you choose one on a suitable rootstock to reach the mature size you want.

I posted a topic a couple of months ago which had pictures of some of the apple trees I grafted earlier this year:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ees_79924.html

As for which rootstock you should use to create a replica of your parents tree, the shortlist would be:

MM106 (the most likely rootstock used for your parents tree)
MM111 (unlikely but possible)
M25 (the second most likely rootstock used for your parents tree)
M116 (extremely unlikely to have been used on your parents tree)

If the tree is pre-1980s it might be a now almost-extinct rootstock such as M1 or M2.

The ideal choice of rootstock would depend on your soil type, depth, fertility, rainfall and temperatures; different rootstocks vary in where they perform well.

thank you for this. My new allotment has a mature Discovery that is huge. It's half the height of the mature horse chestnut near it and right next to an even taller Bramley.

We're going to prune out the dead wood, reduce the height, reduce the spread and open the centre. Can we do that in one winter without damaging it? It crops well with few problems. (ditto can we do this with the Bramley?)

After reading this thread, once the rest of the allotment is back under control, putting in new trees may be worth it although the advantage of huge ones is that they get the sun beyond the 2 horsechestnuts, eucalyptus and 5 leylandii next door!

Thanks FB,

I'm nowhere near your level of competence so will now seek to learn as much as I can about grafting.

I'll head over to google to find a supplier of a rootstock.

I'm guessing that the root-stock supplier will also supply me with grafting tape (as per your other helpful thread!).

Is now as good a time as any to proceed with the cutting/grafting or should I be waiting until the spring as most of the trees efforts will have been expended in this years fruit?

and thanks for your thoughts on just buying another. Sentimentality is the only answer I can come up with!!

Again big thanks!

Blackmoor > link <

Yes, the rootstock supplier can often supply grafting tape. I use 'Parafilm' which I sourced myself for other purposes but found that it works well for fruit trees too - better than grafting tape in my experience but a whole roll of Parafilm is probably much more than you'll ever need.
You might have some success with other stretchy plastics that might be in your shed, such as electricians tape (it's a little too thick/stiff) or clingfilm (it's a little too thin/soft) or PTFE tape from a plumber/gas engineer.

Most people will find it easier to graft around February-March (depending on weather) and that's when you'll usually have your rootstocks delivered - but order rootstock(s) as soon as possible because stocks are limited and often sell out long before February-March.
Grafting can be done in July by a different technique, but you won't get ungrafted rootstock at that time of year.
I would suggest buying more than one rootstock and making more than one graft because sometimes rootstocks die and sometimes grafts don't 'take' - especially if you're less experienced. The more vigorous the rootstock, the healthier the mother tree, the younger and more vigorous the shoot from the 'mother' tree, and the more vigorous the variety of mother tree, the more likely a graft will be successful.

If you get really stuck for rootstock supplies, I often have a few kicking around.
If you or a family member have a reason to pass near Cambridge in late winter and bring a piece of scionwood from the tree, I'll graft a few for you.

If you are passing near Cambridge sooner, I can let you take away a couple of MM106 or MM111 rootstocks which are in a pot (I have several of each which didn't get grafted in March because our baby arrived much earlier than expected!).

You could try putting some apple pips from a supermarket apple in pots on a warm sunny window. Keep adequately watered but not waterlogged.
As the apples will already have been kept in cold storage the pips should be ready to germinate within a couple of weeks.
You can then grow those pips into baby apple trees which might reach 3ft tall by next July, at which time you may be able to 'bud graft' some of your parents tree onto them.

Seedling rootstock is essentially no cost. Seedlings vary in their vigour, with most being around the same vigour as the rootstocks I listed earlier.

Pips from apples like Discovery and Golden Delicious have good germination and produce good seedlings, with a good chance of having some resistance to mildew which is a plague of plants in a humid but low-rainfall environment such as a window.
Pips from apples like Bramley and other triploids often don't germinate or produce freakish seedlings - you might not find a single normal-looking pip in a Bramley apple.

If you use pips from your existing Discovery tree (any rotting windfalls still lying about or in the compost heap?), they will need about a month in the fridge to simulate a winter chill, before they will be ready to germinate.