Thank you harvestman for your valuable input. After reading through your response to me, I feel I have a bit more explaining to do. I would also like to mention that last Winter was an unbelievably cold one. Ongoing -20 to -30 actual temps, should that be any consideration here as well. Because of deer problems, I have kept my scaffolds up a bit to alleviate some of their browsing activity on both foliage and fruit. I open prune as well, in order to get the optimal sun exposure on the fruit of this variety. That's a big part of what it takes to get the Honey Gold variety to sweeten up favorably for my palate. The canopy is therefore in somewhat of an umbrella effect. Hopefully this will explain some of why you don't see much foliage in my photos. Canopy is higher up from where my scaffolds are joined to the main trunk, which is where this problem was mostly taking place down lower. So yes, is a low foliage factor in that area. This tree is on M-7 rootstock. I like the semi dwarf so I can keep them trained for maintaining off of an 8 foot standard ladder. So maybe this helps to explain why I was inquiring about some grafting option for on the main trunk too. I want to be able to train several new main scaffolds. Right now this tree has two balanced scaffolds opposite to each other. I had to eliminate the other two that it previously had. Most likely there are not any dormant buds on the mature portion of the main trunk in the vicinity where the new scaffolds need to be situated. I will definitely double check that when I am able. I don't live where these trees are situated. They are out of town out on an acreage that I own. Below is a pic of the exact tree in question, I thought I should at least show a few leaves - lol. In this photo, one main scaffold has already been removed from the back side. The forking branch to the far right seen here was the next to go after this pic was taken. I actually did an extended stub cut on it should I want to go with a cleft type graft at that particular spot. I'm thinking I would like to start any newly grafted scaffolds above the remaining existing ones, but below the main canopy. So possibly still go with the side grafts for here or ??? FYI - these Honey Golds were my first attempt at growing apple trees. I have definitely learned more training and framework techniques since these were planted. So in fact would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all who post and advise here on this site. It has been a very informative go to place for me for the last several years. Any additional input or evaluations from you harvestman or any of the other fine folks on this forum would be greatly appreciated. Mike/Q-3

I'm about 90 minutes from the Flathead Lake area, in Missoula. The lake is wonderful country, but then, so is this! You're right about the bug pressure: the only insect I seem to have serious issues with is codling moth, but can get up to four, yep, four generations per year out of those! Never been bothered with too much else but there is powdery mildew and some CAR around here. But the season in the Missoula area is pretty short, and peaches are almost impossible for most. 'Cots are challenged but there are a number of survivor trees that have been around for decades; I'll pick a bud stick from one of them to graft onto my Marianna rootstocks this year. Olpea, you're in my brother's neck of the woods. We grew up in northwest Arkansas and he married a Kansas girl and still lives in Lawrence. I followed a western lady to Montana. I'm pretty sure neither of us will leave without being packed out. Good luck on your water. I'm lucky to have well water reasonably close to the surface, so we water all we feel the need to. Congratulations to all for successes beating the weather and making grafts work! :-)M

Similar to Greyphase, I'm fairly new to grafting (2nd year) and have had good success with cleft grafts. Last year I had 58% (11/19) success grafting onto established apple tree. This year, I've improved to 83% (29/35), which will hopefully go higher, as some of the grafts are pretty recent. The main reason I haven't used the Splice and Whip and Tongue grafts is that when I tried to practice it with my prunings, I kept butchering it. I order most of my scionwood, so there is only so much I can waste before I get no graft. This year I've made over 100 grafts (mostly apples and pears, but I've also done some peaches, plums, mulberry, grapes, and persimmons). I only screwed up about 5 cleft grafts so badly that I wasted wood. In most of those, I was able to move up a bit on the scion and reduce the number of buds a bit (usually from 3 to 2). As Harvestman noted, cleft can be useful when you are working with mismatched sizes. About a third of my apple grafts this year are double-cleft grafts, where I used 2 smaller scions, in one graft. It is time-consuming, but I think all my note-taking uses just as much time. I've actually cut back on it, as when first started, I actually recorded the scion width (in mm), length, number of buds, etc, for each graft. Just before I grafted the peaches, I watched a video on grafting Mangoes, where they used a side-graft. It looked interesting and I figured that I could shave a bit of bark off and tie things straight. So, I tried it 3 times with the peaches and at least two are greening up. It was only 2 weeks ago, so I have hope for some of the others. Of the cleft-grafted peaches, at least 2 of the 4 also took. For next year, I think I'll need to look into some double-bladed pruners. I bet I could make more even cuts with that, than with a knife. While some of my cleft grafts from last year have grown only a little, I had others which put on 3+ feet of growth. In the below pic (currently a 20 variety tree), you can see 2-3 branches which I've recently tied down. They Ross Nonpareil and Holstein grafts from last spring.

AHHH. It's been too long!! I see. Thanks, Zecowsay, that's good to know. Yeah, those leaves seem to have stopped growing, and the ones coming out the middle have been very slowly but surely growing. (By slowly, I mean VERYYYYY slowly.) Anyway, AN UPDATE! There's now a SECOND orange seedling sprouting up; it looks about the same as the first seedling did in the first picture I ever posted, although one of its sprout leaves came out very tiny and mutatedish.(I SHALL NAME IT 'NEMO'.) Is it possible for a seed to contain multiple plants? Because I know for a fact that there was only a single seed planted in this pot... And what should I do with the two? Seperate them, or leave them together? Also, on a side note, I got an OttLite desk lamp. They give full spectrum lighting, don't generate a lot of heat, and I've heard they're supposed to make pretty good plant lights.(The bulb is only 9W!) So I'll put the little guy, or rather guys, underneath that for a few hours a day(or more if you think they need it, I'm not sure how much light they need) and hopefully that'll help them really take off. They haven't been growing very much at all, and I suspect it's because there just isn't much light or warmth during this time of year.