My husband and I attended the grafting seminar earlier this summer and loved it! We had nine little trees of varying types grafted onto rootstock by Viron and another gentleman whose name I did not catch. All were very friendly and kind. All of the grafts "took", but three of them died (none of Viron's) after about two leaf sets. The others are growing and getting much taller. Per instructions, as I recall, we have them in one gallon pots with good drainage and water them well. The paper I read said to transplant them into their new home in the orchard in February, while dormant. Is this still the advice? Should I feed them?

And thank you so much to the volunteer grafters who had to have been exhausted after such a day!

…yur welcome! It doesn’t sound like the aftercare instructions you have are ‘mine,’ I’ve come up with my own over the years and they differ from those I noticed being handed out at the exchange… Basically, protect them. But one gallon pots are pretty small for their expanding roots, so I wouldn’t ‘feed them’ anything while they're still in the pots.

As is, I suspect you could successfully transplant them to a permanent location whenever it’s ready. As you know, the new root fibers are tender and easily broken, so it’s best to keep the entire ‘soil ball’ intact while transplanting, but I’d do it. Just make sure their permanent location is safe from …everything, especially deer…

As far as fertilizing, it’s recommended you stop feeding …about now so as not to encourage new growth too late into the season. I think that simply being in the earth with the ability to ‘stretch out’ is all they’ll want.

Thanks for the high praise …no doubt part of why we do it