In recent years, amateur gardening has become increasingly popular among the inhabitants of our country. The consequence of this was a huge demand for seedlings of various fruit trees. Especially novice gardeners love to buy apple trees. Due to the high demand, seedlings have grown significantly in price, and unscrupulous sellers often sell a completely different one instead of the required variety. In this case, an apple tree vaccination in autumn can help a novice gardener. Learning this technique is not at all difficult, and the benefits it provides cannot be overestimated.
Autumn grafting of apple trees
When propagated by seed, any apple tree usually does not retain the quality of the parent. You need to plant hundreds of seedlings, and only one or two copies will completely repeat the taste and color of the fruits of the parent tree. That is why the apple tree is usually propagated by vaccination. At the same time, a two-year-old seedling, which was grown from seeds of winter-hardy varieties or game, is usually used as a stock. This approach allows you to get a strong tree, perfectly surviving the cold time and giving the fruits of the required variety. Vaccination of apple trees in autumn requires the gardener to observe only one basic rule: the apple variety must be placed on a seedling of the same season.
It is immediately necessary to realize that this process requires some skill, and rarely anyone succeeds in conducting it correctly the first time, despite the quality and completeness of the information received. That is why you need to practice a bit. The ideal objects for this can be annual shoots of talnik and poplar. On them you can learn to cut at the right angle, apply a graft to the stock and reliably tie, without causing the plant extra harm. Inoculations performed in this way should simply be placed in a vessel with water and taken out to a well-lit place. After a couple of days, small leaves should bloom on the scion. If this happened, the gardener did everything right and can proceed to such a procedure
as grafting apple trees in the fall. After practicing just a few days, you can acquire a skill that will be useful throughout the rest of your life.
Apple tree vaccination terms
When performing this procedure, any gardener must remember that it requires the following conditions to be met:
- buds on a stock should not be swollen;
- buds on a stock should be in a state of hibernation;
- all tools must be clean;
- the cutting knife should be as sharp as possible;
- cambial layers of stock and scion must necessarily coincide;
- strapping should be done as tight as possible.
Each gardener should understand that vaccinating apple trees in autumn is very similar to surgery, and you need to treat it the same way. Before starting the procedure, you should boil all the tools and wash the place of inoculation with an antiseptic. The sharper the knife that performs the operation, the faster the wounds of the plant will heal. Coincidence of the cambial layer (the so-called zone with young cells located on the border of the bark and wood) is necessary for successful grafting. The denser the stock and scion will be tied, the more successful their fusion will be. Observing these simple rules, any amateur gardener can grow an apple tree of the variety he needs and even try to breed his own.