I put in several grafts as insurance in case others failed this year and most took off upward. I just let them grow and ended up with several going straight up before deciding to keep them and then I started bending downward. After breaking one I took a gentler approach by bending in 2-3 steps. Proud to say as of now I haven’t broken any other limbs. Space the bending increments about a week apart and try not to be overly aggressive. It take more time but worth it. Being small time I can give the extra time needed.
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I wait until the next season or beyond to bend grafts because they become much larger sooner if you let them grow vertically as long as possible. When I wait too long to bend it without one I put in a hinge. I believe strongly in getting whatever you are growing to bearing size ASAP. When my son was an infant, I wished I could have accelerated his sizing up with such an easy trick. The sooner strength comes the greater the chance of survival.
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Water those one and two year old trees. This is the time of the year at my place when I least want to go out and take care of my trees but it is when the need is greatest. Our summers are so hot and dry in most cases it takes one to two years to get an adequate root system. Even if the tree survives without additional water they almost always grow better with supplemental water. Several of my trees will move into the 3rd leaf next year and I’m looking forward to doing less watering.
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This is what I did to recycle my emptied gallon milk jug when my regular water can broke! And it worked quite well…
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Good idea! Must be one of them resourceful types, eh?
Great tip. Thanks for posting
These bag that I used don’t last forever. I was at first surprised to see little piles of rocks under my trees. In most cases they lasted long enough to get a good start on the bending process. For me the 17ga wire is the easiest and best. The good thing is that most methods work.
Birds don’t lie as bad as squirrels. I have noticed that squirrels at my place will take fruit (apples and pear) well before they are close to ripening but in most cases my birds start pecking on my fruit much nearer to ripening. In either case they don’t bother my bagged fruit nearly as much. Bill
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My squirrels have learned that the bags are no real obstacle, alas
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Itilton. My Motts Pink, which is my favorite apple was raped by squirrels this year,. The poor tree had forty zip lock bags on the ground. All in one day! My pears are not only bagged, they are also netted. Oh brother, this is WAR!
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I had to net my bagged Seckels this year
Never seem so much pressure from squirrels - and the varmints can get into the nets, too, if you leave any opening for them
I take a lot of pictures of my fruit trees and things associated with them. Managing these huge numbers of photos can be a nightmare. Google photos will now let you store an unlimited amount plus videos to their cloud service. The 15GB they let you have for free is adequate for all my other none picture items. To use the unlimited picture/video you must click/allow a slight compression of the file to high quality. I just started using the free photo app but it looks great as of now.
@Alcedo Special thanks to Alcedo for posting the original cement limb bending cups. These are easy to make and I assume they will last a log time. When the grands are visiting we will paint them red and some yellow to look like fruit hanging on a tree. My only change was using 17ga wire instead of hooks. Thanks again for the idea Alcedo.
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@ Auburn,I’m really pleased to see this result, good work, now I look forward to see the beautiful colors.
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This tip is about better options/methods in grafting. It is a lot easier to post a tip that mostly went well but as we all know this is not always reality. The Spur Arkansas Black scion was 12" long which exceeds the typical scion length. Instead of using a two scion cleft graft I went with a single scion w&t. This is not my worst mistake or even close. The scion filled in the matched side well but I don’t know how long it will take to completely heal the other side. The bright side is that the scion looks healthy and has what appears to be several fruit buds. Next time I will use a cleft graft with two scions.
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You gave it a try- what better way to learn is there?
:-)M
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Here is another tip if you are considering drip irrigation. The place I get my irrigation supplies has a 20% off sale once a year in October. I have had good results with this company on past orders. The one thing I have learned with irrigation supplies is stick with the same brand, parts from different manufacturers usually do not fit together.
I use 1/2 inch tubing lines for my dwarf apple trees with 2 - .5 GPH pressure compensating button drippers per tree, each dripper is located about 4-5 inches on opposite sides of the tree. This seems to work well but I am no irrigation expert.
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Great tip. The emitters are priced low enough that I might replace all the ones I have. My emitters don’t have the clean out feature. Thanks, Bill
That graft looks fine to me. Do some grafts on big stumps if you want to see something that will take a long time to heal. Your graft will be almost invisible in a couple years.
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I posted this on another topic but thought I should also put it here.
I have much more success grafting onto trees with morning sun. This seems almost as important for the success of plum grafts as working with a tree with excellent vigor. In the morning shaded (eastern) location where even plum grafts that start of strong often die I’ve also failed with all my attempts to graft new varieties on a persimmon tree there- whether it’s actually related to the morning shade or not.
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