Marc: It doesn't sound plausible to me to add a third branch at the junction of your Y, which is what I interpret you to suggest. You will either need to live with the basic framework you have or cut the tree off at the Y and start over. At two yrs of age, the latter is plausible. But unless the Y is weak and prone to split, you can live with what you have. Just train some branches to fill in the empty space using string tied to the ground.

T budding won't help. You could put a bud in that area but you won't be able to force it to grow. There are already buds there that will grow, but only if you cut off the current top. Ditto for any kind of graft you might try, it won't catch up to the other two branches if you can get it to grow at all.

That is my take, maybe someone else has a more positive take on grafting a tree like this.

The Fruitnut

Thanks, Fruitnut. With my limited experience with grafting, I just assumed you could add a branch anywhere. Apparently it must be added where growth is active, right? If this is the case, then I think I will just live with the "Y" shape and train the growth to fill in the sides. I am too anxious to see cherries to chop it off and start over!

Marc

Marc,

Certainly you can live with the Y. I don't think that it is crucial for cherries to be following a wide crotch angle as you do with most other fruits. Cherry fruit do not weigh that much compared to others like peaches, quinces, pears, although there are some conditions that would make them weigh more, but the trick is not training for a wider crotch angle, but rather length of the limbs and making them stouter. Shorter limbs are stronger, and of course shorter cherry trees. So in my opinion, you can most certainly learn to live with a Y shape, but of course the wider the angle of the Y, the better, the angle is not a major factor for me when it comes to cherries.

Now that you have the Y angle, I would suggest you T-bud or chip bud on each of the arms of your Y. You can have up to 10 chip or T-buds on each arm, a total of 20 varieties, even more, only limited by your imagination, forming a nice well spread fan-shape design would be the one that I would prefer. The major advantage of bud grafts is that you can orient the direction of your future limbs, infinite number of ways around a stem, having the full 360 degrees and in between to orient each of the individual bud graft according to your very whims.

Now, this is where some knowledge of particular cultivar come in handy. You would want the most vigorous cultivars oriented to the north side while the least vigorous ones to the southern orientation. You would want the most upright cultivars budded on the upper portion while the spreading habit cultivars on the lower protion of the main limbs. This way, you are ensuring that different cultivars will not shade each other out.

Best time to T-bud is when the buds on the stock start to swell and you see pink color on the tip of the buds. Best time to chip bud is anytime before that but after freezing temperature.

I have a 24-n-1 cherry tree, and another 18-n-1. Am assembling an ultra-dwarf multi-grafted container grown cherry tree at the moment. Container grown cherry trees are not as vigorous takers of grafts as those that are planted in ground. I also have a couple of single cultivar cherry trees and I leave them alone for my wine making needs, as they needed to be harvested at the same time.

Have fun,

Joe

Marc, to answer your question about where to put it, the key is apical dominance: if the bud has too many buds above it, it will stay dormant. I recently found a 5-year-old graft I put in a spot without enough dominance and the bud was still good. If I wanted to lop off the huge growth above it I could probably get it to sprout.

Scott

Thanks all for great info. Joe, have you posted guides to T-budding and chip budding? Your photo guide to bark grafting is fantastic.

Joe, OT, but what graft would be best for grafting an apple scion stick onto a 1/4" caliper rootstock? Fedco has some great stuff available.

Most people use whip and tongue for the apple scion onto small rootstock.

Marc, I've done close to a thousand graft this year and no time for photos yet. That will come later wen friends come over to take photos. As murky ave stated, the whip and tongue are excellent for grafting an apple scion stick unto small rootstock. As with most grafting, be it cleft, splice, whip and tongue, when the sizes are a little bit mismatched, like this time, the stick is bigger than the stock, simply align one side. Apples are more forgiving with this mismatched diameters. But if the diameters are the same, the whip and tongue grafting is the best to use as it produces the strongest and cleanest grafts after the union heals.