I finally tried grafting last spring and got a strange result

I took two apple trees from my backyard in Boise and grafted a Honeycrisp onto a crabapple rootstock. The branch grew like crazy but the apples came out tiny and sour, not sweet like I expected. Some folks say grafting always changes the fruit based on the rootstock, while others think I just did a bad cut. Has anyone else seen a graft give them the opposite result from what they planned?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_brian5d ago

Haha well I guess you got the "surprise" part of grafting right. Sounds like you made a crabapple that just so happens to be fancy.

leewood5d ago

Wait would the crabapple genes still mess with the fruit even if the scion wood came from a true apple?

the_claire5d ago

Isn't the rootstock what really decides the tree's overall vigor though?