Uploaded May 2017 | Updated September 2026, 58 minutes ago
We are moving full speed ahead on grafting the apple varieties we have collected this winter. While the final location for our main apple planting isn’t ready yet, we’ve decided to create a Frankentree/Family Tree to store as many of the varieties as possible. So we are going from a farm that doesn’t do any grafting to needing a small cache of grafting supplies. Most of the commercially available grafting products are expensive and only available in the large quantities used by large growers and custom grafting crews.
Fortunately there are many homebrew recipes in print for grafting wax. Many of these recipes use dramatically different proportions or ingredients, so we decided to put together our own recipe on the fly with the ingredients we had on hand, except for splashing out for a pint of Pine Tar. (We tried buying some Pine Tar online this winter with some X-mas money, but Amazon was unwilling to ship it to us after making the order, as pine tar is considered a hazardous material).
We also wanted to make a grafting seal for painting the scions and grafts after they are tied, as the Cornell top-grafting protocol we found calls for this. We were hoping for a product similar to Doc Farwell’s Grafting Seal. On Instagram Eliza Greenberg has promoted her homebrew recipe consisting of waterproof wood glue mixed with exterior latex paint. Given that we were going to be using the wax as well, and didn’t have those exact materials, we decided to just go with the standard Elmer’s glue and craft latex paint we had on hand.
We’ve used both of our homebrew products, and they seemed to work fine. We’ll see how the grafts do on our new Frankentree.
Here’s the Cornell top-working protocol that we followed more or less.
http://blogs.cornell.edu/plantpathhvl/files/2015/02/12-3-Hoying-NYFQ-grafting-28tz2tf.pdf
Here’s Eliza Greenman’s Instagram on the homebrew Doc Farwell’s. instagram.com/p/BTJQnggjSVz/?taken-by=elizapples
Here’s Stephen Hayes great channel with tons of awesome grafting videos and apple reviews.
youtube.com/user/stephenhayesuk
Here’s Steven Edholm’s Skillcult channel playlist on grafting, also invaluable.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60FnyEY-eJDRcuY_h1U9QX4KurnShOay
We are moving full speed ahead on grafting the apple varieties we have collected this winter. While the final location for our main apple planting isn’t ready yet, we’ve decided to create a Frankentree/Family Tree to store as many of the varieties as possible. So we are going from a farm that doesn’t do any grafting to needing a small cache of grafting supplies. Most of the commercially available grafting products are expensive and only available in the large quantities used by large growers and custom grafting crews.
Fortunately there are many homebrew recipes in print for grafting wax. Many of these recipes use dramatically different proportions or ingredients, so we decided to put together our own recipe on the fly with the ingredients we had on hand, except for splashing out for a pint of Pine Tar. (We tried buying some Pine Tar online this winter with some X-mas money, but Amazon was unwilling to ship it to us after making the order, as pine tar is considered a hazardous material).
We also wanted to make a grafting seal for painting the scions and grafts after they are tied, as the Cornell top-grafting protocol we found calls for this. We were hoping for a product similar to Doc Farwell’s Grafting Seal. On Instagram Eliza Greenberg has promoted her homebrew recipe consisting of waterproof wood glue mixed with exterior latex paint. Given that we were going to be using the wax as well, and didn’t have those exact materials, we decided to just go with the standard Elmer’s glue and craft latex paint we had on hand.
We’ve used both of our homebrew products, and they seemed to work fine. We’ll see how the grafts do on our new Frankentree.
Here’s the Cornell top-working protocol that we followed more or less.
http://blogs.cornell.edu/plantpathhvl/files/2015/02/12-3-Hoying-NYFQ-grafting-28tz2tf.pdf
Here’s Eliza Greenman’s Instagram on the homebrew Doc Farwell’s. instagram.com/p/BTJQnggjSVz/?taken-by=elizapples
Here’s Stephen Hayes great channel with tons of awesome grafting videos and apple reviews.
youtube.com/user/stephenhayesuk
Here’s Steven Edholm’s Skillcult channel playlist on grafting, also invaluable.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60FnyEY-eJDRcuY_h1U9QX4KurnShOay
