Over the last few years I have made notes about the gafted trees which I have acquired.

Most of mine are not seen prior to receiving them. The grafting technique most widely used is that of a "flat graft". This allows the growers to create more grafts, as they can take many scions from one branch. Also, the flat graft is more appealing to the eye.

What I have noticed is that many of the grafted tree scions have been taken from a branch with long spaces between the internodes. This intern makes for few branches or at least branching more widely set. The scions taken with shorter and more stacked internodes develop more branches. This is obvious, I realize to most.

Without having the opportunity to choose a particular tree for shape and other characteristics is something now which is important to myself than it was quite a few years ago.

I am noticing that the grafted trees with a very small scion (diameter) grafted onto a much wider root stock is produces a few nice size branches quite close to the union of graft. Making for a much better start to a nicely shaped and balanced tree.

Another observation is that many Scion to Root Stock choices do not match. What I mean by this is that many of the scions grafted are not as vigorous as the root stock. Also, the grafted portion (scion) can be more vigorous than that of the root stock. This does not make for a great tree.

This may not be overcome as the time to choose a root stock to scion match in similar growth would take too much time.

I quess for myself. I would like to be able to choose.

These are all notes for myself for future grafting practices and thought I would share them so that hopefully others can share their experiences and trials.

Rick