Air layered apple - when should I remove the branch?

I have an apple tree that I started air layering over 2.5 months ago (beginning of July).

I'm thinking it's probably about ready to go into the ground. However, with frost and dormancy being at most a month away, is it worth me waiting until dormancy to plant the new tree?

One concern: I probably should do it sooner than later to give some time for the wound where I remove the branch from the parent tree to heal.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Very neat Brian! What type of apple is it?

I air layered an apple last year and removed it after about two months, and no roots had formed yet unfortunately.

Maybe if you could open it up and peek without fully removing it? I know that might be hard though depending on how the air layer is set up.

I removed mine right near our first frost, maybe even a little after it, and it was fine. We don't get very hard freezes here though, only down to about 15 degrees F, I bet winter damage may be more of a concern where you are.

Steve Thorn wrote:Very neat Brian! What type of apple is it?

I air layered an apple last year and removed it after about two months, and no roots had formed yet unfortunately.

Maybe if you could open it up and peek without fully removing it? I know that might be hard though depending on how the air layer is set up.

I removed mine right near our first frost, maybe even a little after it, and it was fine. We don't get very hard freezes here though, only down to about 15 degrees F, I bet winter damage may be more of a concern where you are.

Well, I can look, but I put it together with potting soil, and it... wasn't easy to get it all together in a way that it works.

It gets down to about -30 Fahrenheit here during winter, so cold enough that winter damage is a pretty large concern. Hence my desire to take the air layered cutting earlier to give the wound some time to harden off and heal before it starts freezing overnight in a couple of weeks.

I guess the worst case scenario, I could plant my air layered cutting into a bucket of damp sand in the short term to give it more of a chance for roots to develop.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea to put it in the sand to root if it hasn't rooted yet when you remove it.

Mine had calloused over and was looking like it may root soon, but I planted mine in too wet of a spot and some voles eventually got to it, so I never got to see if it rooted.

Wishing you the best and hope you get a new own root apple tree soon!