Topworking - how to graft multiple fruit to grow on one tree | Gardening Australia

Sophie has a problem with one of her plum trees. It’s productive enough, but she just don’t like the taste of the fruit. See how an expert performs radical surgery to make a plum produce fruit that’s a pleasure to the palate.
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The productivity of Sophie’s young orchard is increasing every year, but when she was harvesting fruit last season she discovered this plum was producing fruit that wasn’t up to scratch.
Wes Reddens is a friend of Sophie’s and sixth generation orchardist. Sophie’s hoping he can show her a way to fix the taste of my fruit tree that doesn’t involve digging it up and waiting for a new one to grow.
Wes is going to graft a new variety, called “top working”. He cuts the top off and puts on grafts of other fruiting plums on the lower part of the tree.
Wes says “There is a lot of call in the commercial orchards (for top working) when one apple or fruit goes out of favour something like a pink lady on to a red delicious which are no longer wanted.” Wes says this approach means Sophie can be enjoying new variety much quicker than she would with a whole new tree.
He uses a saw to reduce the tree. “We try to take it down to around waist height keeping in mind we have to leave something to graft onto of about pencil thickness” says Wes
The best time is in winter before the buds swell, although it does very a little bit from type to type.
Now for the grafting. As with all grafting, you have a stock – in this case the plum, and scion, the new material going on to the stock. Scion are just healthy prunings from a desired variety. To be successful they must have a living stem tip.
Wes uses a whip and tongue grafting technique, making sure to line up the cambium layer, and seals the graft with tape.
Wes says you don’t have to put the same fruit on the graft-as long as they are closely related enough. “Yes, and it doesn’t even have to be a plum, you could put an apricot on….but if they have different growth rates one side of the plant will get bigger than the other. You might have to prune to keep the tree balanced.
When do you know if the graft has taken? This scion should shoot away in spring a couple of weeks after similar varieties do.
“If you move into a new place and there is an ornamental fruit tree in the garden, an ornamental plum or say a crab apple, you can turn it into a productive tree by grafting.”
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