Grafting for beginners

Clive Simms gave a fascinating account of how he had taught himself grafting skills over many years and described its history. He showed various slides and specimens which illustrated the grafting process.

Clive gave a practical demonstration of whip grafting, where one plant is selected for it’s root, and the other plant is selected for it’s stems, leaves, flower or fruit. This creates dwarf trees and allows the fruits of a normally large tree to be grown on on a much smaller and more harvestable one.

Grafting allows apple growers to quickly change the type of apple they produce, without having to grow the same tree from scratch and thus reduces their production time by years.

Clive demonstrated the equipment he uses and showed that it was safer to ‘rock’ your knife gently when making a cut, rather than just pulling it towards your hand!