Red Splendor for Grafting?

[steve1]

From what I've read grafting to seedlings will produce a very large tree with matching large root system which may have advantages in dry areas where irrigation is limited. Total yield per acre will be less if that's a concern. Also they may not have resistances to things such as wooly aphids. That's why there are commercial rootstocks such as the malling series. If you do quite a bit of apple grafting you could get the rootstock of your choice and 'stool' it. Though it takes a couple of years to hit production they are long lived.
It's not my area of expertise, just what I have been taught and read.
Cheers
Steve

[prairiegarden]

Pot them up and sell them as seedlings at a garage sale?

[rangardener]

Not being the most experienced, my observation might be relevant, might be totally irrelevant.

I have two well established ornamental crab apple trees of unknown varieties, red leaves and red flowers, healthy, very pretty, not unlike Red Splendor. (I assume mine are Prairie Fire, or look alike.)

While I never had problem grafting onto my old apple trees, I have very limited success in grafting onto my crabapples. There seemed to be some compatibility problems, even though most likely they are of the same species. On the other hand, Pacific crabapples (M. fusca) are common here and have been sold as apple rootstocks. I only did it once, but found grafting onto my very old Pacific crabapple quite easy.

Seems to me it is not a bad idea to practice grafting with well known rootstocks since rootstocks are usually not expensive. (In our local scion exchange events, it could be as low as $2 each.) Apples are also the easiest to graft, I learned to graft by watching one done, and had almost no failure with most varieties ever since.