Basic Tips For New Grafters #2: Different Grafts (Discussion Needed)

What a hoot! I sure hope you keep us up to date as this thing matures. I’d love to see how it adjusts.

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Very interesting.how strong is the union?

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It seems pretty strong, though of course it’s tough to say exactly without pulling it apart.

It didn’t have any extra support this winter, and seemed to get through wind and rain just fine.

I’d say if anything, it seems to have made that branch stronger at the expense of flexibility.

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I wonder if you could use those clips to graft smaller seedling fruit trees. Anyone know the age of consent for fruit trees to be grafted? :laughing:

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you can always try! I have tried them and got away with it, underage, no consent needed. The smallest ones I’ve seen were from a video of University California Riverside where they micrografted a tiny as a hair stem, under a microscope and precision equipment controls, a technique that they use to make disease free germplasm material. Could not find the link to it.

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I should also say that the graft is joined at the entire two inch part where the original tree branch and the scion overlap. It’s not just a single point contact. So that helps with the strength/stability.

I like that. I’ve got some thin Scion and thin rootstock. I’ll try it.

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Yep, that’s the only reason I tried this. The scion wood I got was soooo tiny, I didn’t think my knife skills were up to doing anything besides this!

This one goes into my file under “mash em together” LOL

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Reminds me of a z-graft but without the flaps at the ends of the scion and the stock. Maybe those flaps could even improve your very handy graft.

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Look up “pleaching”. This is how I am connecting my apple hedges.

Also, I couldn’t resist peeling back some of rubber to see how the healing process is going. Here’s one of the above limbs:

Don’t know if you can tell but it has basically healed smooth over the graft before I scratched it just now peaking.

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I found this video, this gentleman has a really interesting “holder” for grafting. It’s a grainy video but he appears to have leather nailed inside the “mouth” and a piece of fence wire that runs down to a pedal (I’m picturing a block of wood) on the floor for holding it closed while he cuts. Made out of scrap leather, scrap wood and a big hinge. More complicated than a CD (fantastic idea IMHO) for not cutting yourself but if one were doing lots of bench grafts it might be nice!

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I believe that may be AppleNut here on this forum (Kuffel Creek).

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My first thought too!

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It is from Kuffel Creek according to youtube :slight_smile:

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That’s the one.

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I’m switching to rubber bands or budding rubbers to supply the reinforcement for my grafts this year. I’ve been a loyal supporter for Temflex rubber splicing tape and have used it exclusively the last three years. However, last fall and this spring I spent too much time hacking away at it to remove it from my grafts. It sticks so well to itself that it requires fiddling with a knife or box blade to slice and I’m clumsy enough that it will probably catch up with me. Or else tear up my trees.
The few times I’ve used rubber bands have worked well and they degrade faster than temflex. So usually by the end of summer they are on the ground.

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I have similar w parafilm, by late summer they are at least cracked and flaking off if not gone

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I bought them this year too, but I have a hefty supply of parafilm on hand as well in case I can’t get the hang of the grafting rubbers.

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This is a type graft (similar to a bridge graft initially) I started a couple of years ago and the method has worked out well in most cases. These were loaded about six weeks ago. I’m just getting into growing filberts and grafting them.

001 York scion @clarkinks , @danchappell, @Seedy


002 York scion with top removed from stock

003 Jefferson scion

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