Family Apple Tree Records: How to Track Every Graft on a Multi-Grafted Tree

A family apple tree carries several varieties on one rootstock, and the labels are the first thing to go. Tags fade, wind snaps them off, and a tree that was clearly organised in spring is a tangle of identical-looking branches by its second summer. The fix is a small record made on grafting day and added to a few times in the first season: one row per scion, a sketch of where each one sits, and a fixed way of saying which is which. This piece sets out what to write down, what to check in the first season, and what to do when a graft fails or a variety turns out not to be what the label said.

One real example to anchor the record

Darren T describes top-grafting a family tree in "How To: Top-Graft a 'Family' Apple Tree" on Orchard Notes (2 April 2022). He used an out-grown MM106 rootstock on his Plot #79 allotment orchard and rind-grafted six scions onto it, three on each of the stems he left. His record step is worth copying. He labelled each scion individually, sketched the placement of all six in a notebook, and added an online note as well, which he calls a double belt-and-braces measure. For the written list he went clockwise around each stem, starting with the scion nearest the road that runs along the side of the plot: Tydeman's Early Worcester, Catshead, Orleans Reinette, Wareham Russet, Rosemary Russet and Worcester Pearmain.

Three things in that approach carry over to any family tree. There is a fixed starting landmark, so the order can be reconstructed without the tags. There is a physical label on each scion. And there are two independent copies of the record, one on paper and one elsewhere. Everything below builds on those three habits.

Fix a landmark and a direction before you graft

Position is the field people skip, and it is the one that saves you when a label vanishes. Decide the system before the first cut, then write it at the top of the page.

• Pick one landmark that will not move: a road, a fence, a building, a path, or true north if you carry a compass. Write down exactly what it is.
• Number the stems or limbs if there is more than one. Stem A is the one nearest the landmark, then continue in one direction. Write the direction.
• Within a stem, list scions clockwise, starting with the one closest to the landmark. The example above went clockwise around each stem from the scion nearest the road. Say whether you mean viewed from above or from outside, because any consistent convention works as long as it is written down.
• Add a rough height for each graft (for example, the height above ground of the graft point on that stem), because scions on the same stem may sit at different levels.
• Draw the sketch from directly above and label every scion with its Graft ID. A thirty-second drawing is more reliable than a paragraph describing it.
• Photograph the tree from the landmark side on the day, with the labels visible, and again from the opposite side.

The graft register: one row per scion

Give every scion its own Graft ID, for example FT1-A1 for family tree 1, stem A, scion 1, and use it on the label, the sketch and every row. The tree is not the unit of record here, because one tree holds many varieties. The graft is.

• Graft ID and tree ID: the code on the physical label, and the code for the whole tree if you keep an inventory.
• Variety, as received: the name exactly as the source gave it.
• Position: stem, order clockwise from the landmark, and approximate height.
• Graft date and method: rind graft, whip and tongue, bud graft, cleft, or whatever you actually used. Orchard Notes points out that the choice depends on the shape of the tree and the thickness of its stems: whip and tongue is normally used for pencil-sized scions on one-year-old rootstocks, and on an established tree you are more likely to need rind (bark) grafting, so the stem thickness at the time is worth noting too.
• Source of the scion wood: your own tree, a neighbour's, a nursery, a swap, a collection. Add the date cut and how it was stored. In the example, four scions had been cut a few weeks earlier and kept in the fridge, and two were cut fresh from other trees in the same orchard. That difference is exactly the kind of thing you will want when you compare how the grafts did.
• Condition of the wood: write down anything you doubted. Darren notes that one of the fridge-stored scions was a little on the dry side, so he expected it might be touch-and-go. A line like that costs nothing now and may help explain a failure later.
• Rootstock: the rootstock name or your best identification, and how sure you are.

If your wood came from outside your own garden, the supplier and chain-of-custody fields in our piece on scion provenance records go into the same register. This article is about the graft and the tree; that one is about the wood's history before it reached you.

First-season checks: did it take?

Darren's own expectation is a useful baseline: if grafts are successful, he expected to see new growth from each scion within a few weeks of grafting, and by the end of the growing season hoped for six strong new stems with the graft points fused and grown over with scar tissue. Your timing will depend on climate and method, so treat that as one grower's expectation, not a rule. What matters is that you check on a schedule and write down what you see, rather than glancing at the tree when you happen to be passing.

A simple schedule is enough. Add three or four dated columns to the register.

1. 1Two to three weeks after grafting: buds swelling, still green when you scratch very lightly, or shrivelled and dry. Write "swelling", "green", "dry" or "unclear" rather than "fine". Check the tape or ties at this visit and every visit after it, so a wrap never starts to cut into a growing stem.
2. 2Six to eight weeks: is there leaf or shoot growth from the scion bud? Record the shoot length in centimetres or inches, whichever you use, and whether the growth came from the scion or from the rootstock below it.
3. 3Mid to late season: is the union sealed and callusing? If you wrapped the grafts with plastic tape, note the date you removed it. Orchard Notes says the plastic is to be removed once the scions are growing well, to avoid damaging the scions or main stem as they grow, so do not wait for this visit if an earlier check shows the wrap getting tight.
4. 4End of season: shoot length, number of shoots, and a plain verdict for each graft: taken, failed or uncertain. Do not delete the uncertain ones. Leave the row and recheck next spring.

Record rootstock shoots separately. On a top-worked tree, the stock will send up its own growth, and it is easy to mistake that for a scion that took. A graft that has died should not be given credit because something green is growing nearby.

When a graft fails

A failed graft is data, not an embarrassment, so keep the row and fill in the cause as far as you can tell. Look back at the register: was it one of the dry or older pieces of wood, a particular method, a position that got more wind or shade, or a stem where several grafts failed at once? With six scions per tree, a single failure usually means little, and two or three on the same stem is worth a second look at your technique or your wood.

• Mark the row as failed and write the date you decided so. Keep the Graft ID retired: never reuse it for something else.
• Note what you did next. Options include regrafting in the following spring into the same stem, bud grafting later in the same year, or leaving the space to be filled by a neighbouring scion's growth. Give the replacement a new Graft ID that points back to the old one.
• Update the sketch. The position of a dead scion still matters, because the remaining order is what lets you work out the identity of the rest.
• If the graft failed and the rootstock sprouted, decide whether to keep or remove the sprouts and record which. A sprout left to grow can take over.

Year two onward: growth, flowering, fruit and disease per graft

Once the grafts have taken, shift to the same per-graft tracking you would use for any variety, but keep it at graft level, because the varieties will behave differently from each other even though they share a trunk. Flowering time, set, harvest dates, fruit size and disease pressure all vary by variety, and a whole-tree note hides exactly the information you grafted a family tree to learn.

• Growth: shoot length and the number of leaders per graft at the end of each season, plus any pruning you did to it.
• Flowering: first bloom date and a rough bloom intensity per graft. Our piece on flowering and fruit-set records covers a simple scale.
• Fruit: first fruit year, pick dates, number or weight if you can, and a line on taste and keeping quality. Our piece on per-tree harvest records has a record sheet; use the Graft ID in place of the Tree ID.
• Disease and pests: date, what you saw, and which graft. Varieties differ, so the register may show you whether one variety is consistently the problem.
• Pruning: which graft, what you removed and why. The pruning-records piece applies directly. On a family tree, a vigorous variety can shade a weaker neighbour, and your pruning log will show when that started.

When a variety turns out not to be what the label said

Eventually, one of the fruits will not match what you expected: the wrong colour, season or shape, or a russet where you expected smooth skin. Before you decide the label was wrong, check the basics.

1. 1Confirm the fruit grew on the graft you think it did. Use the sketch and the position record to trace the shoot back to the union, and make sure it is not from the rootstock or a neighbouring scion.
2. 2Compare across more than one season and more than one fruit. Weather, crop load and ripeness change the look of a fruit, so one odd apple is not enough.
3. 3Go back to the register's source line and condition notes. If the wood came from several places, check whether other grafts from the same source look wrong too.
4. 4Compare against a trusted reference tree of that variety, if you know one, and ask the source what they know about their own tree.
5. 5Relabel honestly. Change the tag to something like "received as Catshead, fruit not matching, unverified" rather than guessing a new name. Keep the original name in the register, in a column marked as received.

A register of position, source and dates shows where a mix-up could have entered. It cannot prove which variety is on a branch. Only comparison with a reference tree, or a DNA test, goes further, and both have limits.

Keep two copies

Orchard Notes' author did not rely on the tags alone. He kept a notebook sketch and an online note, and his plan was to keep a very close eye on the grafts through the year and post updates as they developed. Copy that: a paper notebook for the field, plus a spreadsheet or photo folder at home. If the tags go, the sketch plus the landmark let you rebuild the order.

Paper first, an app if you want it

A notebook page for each family tree, with the sketch on one side and the register on the other, does the whole job. A spreadsheet with one row per Graft ID works just as well and sorts easily. If you would like the graft records attached to the tree's location on a map, with photos and notes in one place on your iPhone, CanopyTwin can do that, and there is a 30-day free trial. It is a convenience, not a requirement; the habits above work with or without it.