Bob- Two weeks ago I pinched off blossom buds on a benchgraft hoping that would somehow trigger a vegetative shoot to grow but it did not. Any ideas before I re-graft (entails two hours of travel so prefer it the darned thing would sprout). Thanks
rubber, I like it a lot, works well.
Here is one with garden tape, a fig.
This was a tiny piece, but a valuable fig (CDD Rimada). Grafted unto an unknown.
Hambone, I’ve read different info on this and have always heard to pinch them off and the flowering bud will revert to a vegetative one and continue scion growth. I only pinch off the flower itself not the complete stem it is on. That has been my history with this… and that is only two years of grafting on rootstock.
Make sure you only pull or pinch off the flower and not the rest of the vegetation in a nutshell…
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Whoops. Been doing that wrong. 
Tried pinching off the flowers on 2 different cherry scions this year. They never reverted to vegetative buds and the scions ended up not taking. However all grafts with at least one veggie bud took. It proves the point that it’s important which wood you pick for scions and also to learn to recognize the differences between fruit buds and leaf buds in the cultivar you are grafting.
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Thanks Bob, that’s what I did. Any idea how long it takes this kind of bud to take off and grow after pinching?
Carot,
I probably won’t graft peaches/nects until some time next week as right now, the weather will go downhill for several days.
I will make a note of temp the day of my grafting and a few days after.
I did graft a few apricot 3 days ago, not waiting for high 60 because apricot grafts (5) took so easily for me last year. So, I fool myself to think that it’ll be easy again this year. I have a few more apricot scions to graft with nects/peaches in the near future.
By the way, my second round of grafting peaches in mid/late May had only about 70% take rate. I try to remind myself that there are lot variables that contribute to grafting success.
I’m realizing the temperature of the graft is complicated. I did a bark graft of peach Scion and used black tape. The ambient temperature was 58 degrees when I checked the temperature of the tape. The tape was 85 degrees on the shaded side of the tree and 97 on the sunny side. That means that even at cool temperatures the graft is getting heat with black tape at least part of the day. Orange tape was at 87 in the sun. We’ll see what happens with those grafts with a week of cool temperatures.
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Maybe some of the experts will help out on this topic. This would be my first full scion that was all buds with no leafing buds on it. So far mine are doing well after pinching and for me will have to wait this out. @gsims1997, I’ve had good luck in the past but have always had at least one leaf bud. Will keep posting as time goes. I hope this one takes as it is a William Pride I received from a member. Apples are probably a bit more forgiving that cherries as well.
This is what I was thinking too. The dark tape will be quite warm in the sun. Also the scions wrapped in parafilm will be in greenhouse like conditions. They should be warm under parafilm in sunny weather.
I have 2 Capilano, and 2 that came from Konrad on the GW thread, they are trials of an apricot he says is slightly better than Capilano, no official name yet.
The Capilano is very cold hardy and if it fruits up there every second year the buds must be fairly frost hardy in the spring. The city allows people to pick the fruit, and some get scions for grafting. Many seeds from this tree have been sown in the hopes of getting another good apricot.
here is a description from DNA gardens in Alberta.
Capilano # 1
Parents: Unknown
Origin: Tree found on buffer zone west of Capilano Freeway just south of CBC Station between 86 Av. And 90 Av.
Growth: Specimen has multiple stems and is open and spreading
Fruit habit: The lady of the closest house says it fruits every second year. Many people pick them. Size: 4 x 4.2 x . 3.6 cm
Shape: flattened ventrally; higher at shoulder
Suture: deep ending at beak
Stigma: small flattened beak
Color: very dark yellow with red blushes on exposed skin.
Aroma: good
Maturity: end of July
Texture: soft
Taste: juicy, very sweet
Uses: excellent dessert type
Stone: free
Thean Pheh remarks:
City of Edmonton could not determine whether it was a seedling or selection as it was planted in the 60’s and the lile could not be traced. There were three apricot plants on the same buffer strip and each is completely different from the other in growth habit, fruit maturity, size, shape and taste leading me to think that they are open pollinated seedlings.
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@Antmary I’ve enjoyed since I became a member your graft photographs.
I took a few photos tonite of (3) peach seedlings I bought just for grafting and one Euro plum.
Either did a pretty well across the board job accepting multiple Genus/species and hybrids.
@mamuang - thanks.
@Paul - Thank you.
A pretty broad assortment on Peach
Wish i could remember who sent what.
Thanks a lot guys,
Dax
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Dax,
Very good looking grafts you have. Thank you for the photos.
Thank you for the information! It’s wonderful that these were just seedlings but turned into such great and hardy trees.
I’m actually wondering if they’d work in the south…apricots often blossom too soon, and I wonder if this variety would have a little more hardiness to hold onto the flowers/fruitlets if you had a cold snap after blossom. Plus, if it had a lot of CH, I wonder if it would break dormancy a bit later…
Hmmm…
Seriously, though, I hope you have great luck with them. What R/S do you use up there for hardiness? Some kind of Manchurian seedling, or…?
Scott -
Two questions that I’d love to hear your (or anyone else’s) thoughts on.
1 - I did some bark grafting a couple weeks ago (when it was much warmer) and remarkably some of them showed new growth poking through. Will the cool weather of this week and next affect them negatively? Or does that the fact that they’re pushing new growth make them “safe”. (The weather this past week was highs in the 60s and lows in the 50s, the weather for this coming week looks like highs in the upper 50s and low 60s and lows from 37(!!) to the high 40s (!!) )
2 - Given the upcoming weather week, (lows in the high 30s to high 40s and highs in the 50s and 60s) is it foolish to do any grafting? I have some peaches, nectarines, apples and maybe some plums left. Should I just hold off on the stone fruit?
Thanks!
I use prunus americana seedlings for rootstock, but I also have some seedlings from these Capilano trees for rootstock.
I am not sure about them being better for southern conditions, they grow south of Edmonton, in the Calgary area and the blossoms still get hit with spring frosts.
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Bart, if the grafts are taking off the cool weather should just stall them for a bit. I did a bunch of grafts in this cool spell and they are all stalled to varying degrees at varying phases.
Its not looking real good for peach grafts in the next week or so. I would wait until at least mid-60’s highs. For apples and plums they callous reasonably well at lower temps so no problems with doing them now.
This is an important technique you can use: paint black if its too cool and cover in aluminum foil if its too hot. I often cover my peaches in aluminum foil even if its not getting super hot since direct sun can heat things up quite a bit. On the other hand I will paint the graft union area black if I’m not getting enough heat but its sunny out. I always do this on spring grape grafts, grape grafts callous best in the 80-90F temperature range. I’m not sure how much parafilm heats things up but I bet it makes scions warmer compared to unwrapped ones.
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You shouldn’t unwrap your grafts, but look how great this looks:
Incidentally, this is an attempt at Konrad’s modified bark grafting.
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Bart,
Just my opnion: The two upcoming nights in the 30s will prove crummy weather. Ideally, I would wait until the overnights creep back into the 40s (Tuesday) before starting back in on the apple grafting and moving on from there. If you don’t have the luxury of weekday grafting, you have to make the tough choice of waiting for the next weekend to come along (while your scionwood becomes one week less viable).
If you have the opportunity - with ample wood - to do some grafts this weekend, and execute more grafts next weekend, then that might be the way to go. Make a fresh pruners cut at the bottom of your budsticks and drop them into a glass of water for a few hours to plump them back up before grafting.
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Now that I’ve figured out my yellow pear is a perfect interstem I used it today to solve the last of my stubborn pear rootstock problems. I’ve never had a graft of it fail on any callery rootstock. I grafted over at least 50 pear rootstocks today and have a hundred more to do tommorow. There are two big callery on my list to graft over for friends and I’m getting fairly low on scion wood now. I have about 100 scions left.
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