To graft a fruit tree, you will need an established tree, or stock, that has a good root system. You will also need cuttings, called scions, harvested the previous winter to graft into them in the spring. You will need tools with sharp blades, such as knives, shears, and saws to make the cuts in the bark to expose the places on the scions and the stock where they will be joined together by the graft. You will also need some kind of tape or rubber strips to bind the graft together and graft dressing compound to protect the tree wounds left by the grafting process as they heal.

The Scions

These are small branches with about three or four buds on them. They should be no thicker than about 3/8" in diameter and about 6 inches to a foot long. These cuttings should be collected from fruit trees in the winter during the dormant season. They should be bundled and labeled, and kept cool and moist in the refrigerator (do not freeze) until spring.

The Stock

Also called the understock or the rootstock, this is the fruit tree into which the scions are to be grafted. It is the root system of the grafted tree. The grafting onto the stock can be done between the time the buds appear in the spring and before blooming begins. The understock can be a fruit tree that is already established in the yard into which one or more different cultivars (varieties) of the fruit are to be grafted so that the tree can cross-pollinate itself. It can be a young tree into which a seedling is to be grafted by a nursery to produce a tree that will produce fruit in fewer years than a tree grown from seeds. It can be a tree injured by girdling, or stripping of the bark around the entire tree by rodents, that is to be treated by a method called bridge grafting. A dwarf rootstock can be grafted with scions from a regular fruit tree to make a dwarf tree of that variety.

Grafting a Scion to the Stock

The scions to be grafted into a stock should be prepared by making slanting cuts on one or both sides of the end of the scion to form a wedge, which exposes the cambium, or growing part of the branch under the bark. This is to expose the cambium, which will be inserted into the stock so that the cambium of the stock joins the cambiums of the scions to form a continuous cambium in the grafted tree. A notch or cut is made through the bark of the stock into the cambium to either expose it, from the side or cut end of the stock. This cut end could be on a slant or straight. The wedge of the scion is then inserted under the bark of the stock into the cut so that the two cambiums are held against each other. More than one scion is often grafted into the same stock so that at least one of them will thrive.

Binding and Dressing

The union of the stock with each scion is a graft and should be held together by tape, either grafting tape, electrical, or adhesive tape, or rubber strips. Then the graft should be coated with graft dressing to protect and prevent drying of any remaining exposed surfaces of the graft. The binding strips or tape should be removed as soon as the scion starts to grow so that it does not restrict the graft from growing in girth. You may not need the graft-dressing compound if the graft is small and hardly any wound is present after the graft is bound.