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Reworking Apple Trees

A Golden Delicious apple tree nine years after being side worked in an apple re-working trial at the Blackwood Experimental Orchard, April 1968.  This trial which was supervised by David Kilpatrick Senior Horticultural Adviser compared two methods of reworking to change the variety of fruit produced on a tree.

One of the methods involved side or frame working in which a large number of grafts were inserted into the frame of a tree in spring after it had been cut back substantially to a main limbs and short sub limbs.

The other method, crown working, involved cutting off the tree at or slightly below ground level and then inserting up to six grafts around the outer circumference of the butt between the bark and sap wood.

Growth after grafting, the development of wood rotting fungi and other aspects were considered in the trial.  The results were predictable in that frame working was much more expensive because of the large number of grafts required and carried the chance of wood rot unless grafting wounds were carefully sealed, however, it brought a tree back into good production much more quickly than top working.  Top working was a quick and inexpensive method to change a variety but the new tree took much longer to establish.

Blackwood Experimental Manager, Bob (RWI) Cowley in on the right of the picture and Orchard Hand, Bert (AS) Whitford on the left.

(Note – the essential elements of this trial were written up in Department of Agriculture Bulletin 480 “Propagation of Deciduous Fruit Trees” by DT Kilpatrick and JN Steed in the late 60s)

(Source: John Steed)