A Grafting Demonstration

Last Thursday many of our homeschool group's families learned all about grafting different varieties of apples to an old crabapple tree. We learned about scionwood, and why grafting is so important for apple growing. I found a website with a simple explanation of what we learned:

Scionwood is cuttings from a tree of the desired variety that it grafted onto another tree or rootstock. The scion is usually dormant at this stage and harvested in late winter. If you took a seed from a good apple and planted it, the apples from the resulting tree would most likely be sour duds. That's because that apple has two parents, and the kids will be much different than the parent or their other siblings, and unfortunately often turn out bad. To propagate a distinct variety, it must be cloned. This is done by taking a cutting and grafting it onto another host. Apple varieties have been propagated this way since the Egyptians, and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were avid grafters. It is the only way to reproduce a variety to get a tree exactly like the host tree.

Thank you so much, Mrs. J. and Mr. T., for teaching us so much. It was simply fascinating!