How to Root Fruit Trees
Fruit trees are most commonly rooted and propagated through a method called bud grafting. Bud grafting requires delicate handling, but by following a few basic steps and properly caring for your grafts, you can successfully root your own fruit trees. It is best to take a graft in the spring and from a fruit tree that is healthy and not over five years old. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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1
Cut a thin, 12-inch shoot from the tip of a healthy branch of the source tree. Shoots should be no thicker than a pencil and should have healthy buds. Cut off the leaves at the midpoint of their stems. Wrap shoots in wet paper towels and put them in plastic bags. These will be the bud sticks.
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2
Cut another shoot that is slightly thicker than the bud sticks. This will be the stock shoot.
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3
Use a budding knife to create capital T-shaped incision on the stock shoot. Make the cut between two leaves, somewhere toward the middle of the shoot. Hold the shoot upright and make the horizontal cut first (the top of the T). This cut should be about half an inch long. Then make the vertical cut. This cut should be about 1 inch long.
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4
Carefully stick the tip of the knife underneath the bark around the incision and separate a little of the bark from the inner tissue of the branch. You are creating two tiny flaps on either side of the incision.
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Cut off the buds from the bud stick. Cut the bud as well as a 3/4-inch section of bark around the bud. Start the cut below the bud and cut up (away from your body) and under. Make a clean cut at the top. You should have a round sliver of bark with a bud in the middle.
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Insert the bud underneath the flaps of the incision on the stock shoot. Secure the bud in place by wrapping rubber bud strips around the incision. Do not cover up the bud. Wrap the graft union loosely in plastic wrap and place the shoots in a humid area where there is natural light.
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Force the bud stick to start growing two to three weeks later by cutting the stock shoot off 3 inches above the bud. Keep other stems on the bud stick pruned as the new bud grows.
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8
Plant the seedling with the graft union 2 inches above the ground.
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