Grafted apple flower buds instead of leaf buds!

[hop-a-long]

Hi all,

I did a bit of grafting back in Feb this year, most of the buds are swelling now and looking good, however one variety has three nice buds opening up and upon closer inspection I can see that they are definitely flower buds! Is there any hope that this scion will be able to throw a vegetative shoot out somewhere around the flower buds? It's only a few inches long and only has the three buds on it as far as I can see at the moment, and it's the only piece of scion wood from this variety that I have so I would like to get it to grow.

What should I do? Pick off the flowers when they emerge, or just wait and see what it does?

Cheers!

Ps I never seem to have luck getting the photos to upload but I can try again if anyone is interested.

[Dave8abond]

Hi

2 years ago, one of my bench grafts flowered (the only bud that swelled). I picked off the flowers and it did indeed then send out vegetative growth from there. It's now 6ft tall and doing well.

There is hope (n=1)

[Plot70]

I have had fruit plants of various kinds flower and drop the fruit at very small size and switch to vegetative growth in times of stress. I have an apple tree that was carted over 200 miles in the back of a hot car while it was in flower. It dropped the fruit while it was tiny and flowered and fruited normally the following season.

[ameno]

Apples grow leaves from flower buds, too. Just wait until the bud has opened a little more, and carefully pick off only the flowers, leaving the leaves from each bud behind.

[hop-a-long]

Thanks all for the speedy response, I'm glad there's hope!