One of our major tasks this year will be grafting. We experimented last year with grafting scions - slips of first year growth - on to mature trees. We chose scions of Red Windsor variety and they were grafted very successfully on to mature Cox trees.
As a variety Cox is losing its attraction to both growers and the public and top-grafting is a way of making use of the valuable root growth that the tree already has but changing the fruit variety it produces. Red Windsor grafts on to Cox trees will produce Red Windsor apples.
The grafts are called "scions". January is the ideal time to harvest scion wood, when the wood is at its most dormant. We look for young active one year growth of our chosen variety and we want the base of it to be about pencil thickness with plenty of leaf bud on the scion.
The grafts will be slipped under the outer bark of a branch and bound in. All the grafts we made experimentally last year have taken and this year we will be extending the work.
Scions are quite valuable things. We need about 600 scions to do the grafting we have planned. Last year, when we bought in the scions, it cost us about £11.50 per tree to do it, including labour. By harvesting our own scion wood this year we can probably reduce that by around £4.50 per tree, so quite an important saving.
