Whip grafts -The bigger the diameter the harder they are to graft

I hope you didn’t take that as a serious statement- can’t you read the twinkle in my eye:wink:wink::wink::- using emoji seems like cheating, and when you tell someone you’re kidding it pretty much ruins a joke- even a very small one.

I don’t graft to branches that need to be held and steadied, but it is a bit tricky to hold the graft together with the thumb and finger of one hand while wrapping the tape with the other. I have relatively small dexterous fingers (I am a trained classical flutist, or was), but I can see how real MANHANDS might not be delicate enough to do this work easily, although many different kinds of hands seem to be able to quickly master this method when I show it to them. More dexterous fingers just master it better and maybe get a somewhat higher percentage of takes. The trick is to begin wrapping the tape around the tree wood (shoot) a bit below the graft before putting the scion in place.

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I find that using budding rubbers makes it easier to bind up a splice graft. Make a couple of wraps and then make an adjustment in positioning. Wrap more and make more adjustment as needed. The rubber keeps a nice constant tension on the two pieces. Helps with W&T as well for that matter.

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Okay,I’m getting a better picture about how to do a splice.Wrapping a tape or rubber first is a good tip.
Still,I feel more confident right now,that the two pieces are aligned after wrapping,using a whip and tongue.
Donald Trump might really do well at this. Brady

99% of my grafts are w and t in the winter/erarly spring or budding in the summer. I’ve done a bit of cleft grafting. I tried bark grafting but it’s so hard to get 6-8 good scions.
John S
PDX OR

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How did you do with your non-cleft grafts? Last year I did mostly cleft grafts and 2 splice grafts. One of the splice took and the graft union looks so great that you can’t even tell it was grafted. I thought cleft was easier to do than splice but most of my cleft grafts look very ugly. So I’m debating whether to go with more splice this year than cleft. But at the same time if it works I shouldn’t try to fix it just to get a good looking graft union.

From my records (I should probably check the grafts this spring to ensure they really made it):

8/12 for splices, though that includes 3/3 on apples & pears (which I was 46/47 on anyway…) and 2 takes on mulberries, which were almost 80%. That leaves 3/6 on peaches & nectarines. But I had very different results based on early vs late for peach/nectarine (70% vs 18%). The splices break down to 60% and 0% (3/5 and 0/1), so they are on par or a bit lower. It’s worth noting I had 19/20 success with jujubes, the only failure being the one splice graft I did (18 clefts, 1 double bark all working).

I think I like splices when the scion and host are both pretty big and matching in size.

Bark Grafts:
Single: 6/10
Double: 37/64
Triple: 3/5

No matter if I did a single, double, or triple bark graft (1, 2, or 3 scions), the success rate was about 60%. 8/8 on apples and pears. For peaches/nectarines, 5/8 for early and 2/9 for late, which works out to about the same as cleft grafts.

So I think bark grafts work reasonably well for me and are a very useful for when you have a mature tree to completely work over, or have small scions (or both).

I’ll take a look to see how my splices and bark grafts look. For many, the electrical tape is still on them…

I actually prefer a bit of ugliness- nothing extreme, but a line is nice. Otherwise I’m likely to forget exactly where the graft was.

Not exactly a big sample size :wink:

Though the same can probably be said about my “data”.

My totals:

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Good info, and interesting your early peach grafts did better, how late is late?
I got about 80% on peaches, and 95% on plums, well exact percentage unsure? I had about 20 plum grafts and one failed, both cleft and splice. Beats the two years before where I got 0% and then 0% the next year. it all changed when i did them early. I want to try Z grafts for more contact and an easy way to secure versus whip and tongue, which i have a hard time with. I may have just as a hard time with Z, we will see. I will practice first.

My earlier grafts did not do well. Will go later/warmer this year.

I’m going to do a number of sessions, so after this year, I should get an idea of best time and conditions.

Drew,

What rootstock did you do peaches on?

Peach seedlings and some grafts on mature PF Lucky 13 peach, and spice Z nectaplum (I have a euro plum on it too).
I plan on using seedlings when needed. I was thinking of seeds from Red Haven, Redskin, and PF 24c. I don’t have room for more trees, I have three seedlings currently, and no plans for more. I might do a bunch when I move. But that might not be for a few years, or never?
If I were to buy rootstock i would buy only Lovell for this area. Works great here.

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I have Lovell and hope they work this year. Will try some existing redhaven trees as well.

Also will pick a few trees up from Tractor Supply that sale for 8 bucks or so and graft to them.

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So these look like what you saw @ TS? This was from last week at a nearby store. They were $13, I believe.

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That is exactly them! Didn’t remember the cost but I have a few scions that are I’m excited to graft. I will use a few of those for grafting to.

Thanks for the tease pictures :grinning:

I had forgot about the Blue Damson plum there. The back side display had the apples- Red and Golden Del, Jonathan and Honeycrisp. For $13 a pop, I’d be willing to try a Jonathan. All of them had a nice caliper to them, I just wonder what shape the roots are in, and if they’re still moist. I wonder if being in that somewhat warm store if they’ll start coming out of dormancy soon.

I’ve done hundreds of splice grafts over the years, if the scion and stock match up they are super reliable and heal much more quickly than the other types. The whip and tongue variation I always found too much work, if I had good wedges on each side I had all the contact I needed. You do need to make sure both cuts are flat, if its a bit curved you may not be getting complete contact. Sometimes I see they are curved a bit, but with enough pressure they all are touching. So I wrap those ones really tightly so they stay touching. If the size is off its perfectly good to align one side only, I have done a huge number of those. Pick the side to align which has the best contact of cambium, I often try it each way and pick the best one. If the wedges are not the same angle or size just take another whack at the stock or scion to get a fresh cut.

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I have found that the one sided blades make straighter cuts, as i tend to get this curve, so that one sided knife made a difference. Much better anyway.

Also watching a video on fig grafting, It was mentioned more hormones are around the bud nodes, so if one side has a node try there first with different sized scion.

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I tried a couple times to graft with knives that were not one-sided - I probably had misplaced my grafting knife and needed to get some grafts finished. Every time I wondered how anyone could get such a graft to work, the cuts were much harder to get to come out reasonably.

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My husband does the knife work when grafting since he’s an accomplished wood carver and more than a little comfortable with using a knife. But last spring when I got my new ARS hand pruners I mentioned to him that others on the forum had good luck using them for cutting the wood. He tried it and never went back to using the knife (except for the tonque–we do almost all W&T). It seemed to make the whole process calmer and easier. Since I do the wrapping I much prefer W&T. I find it more stressful trying to keep the simple splice pieces lined up while wrapping.

I should mention that it’s a well sharped hand pruner. If you don’t already have sharpening in your blood I’d like to put in a big plug for it. It REALLY makes whatever job you’re doing a lot easier and more fun. It’s a worthwhile skill (an understatement), and anyone can do it. I’m not really great at it but when I was carving regularly (spoons) I learned to sharpen my own tools so I know it’s not that hard to learn and you don’t have to be really great to get good results, whether it’s your kitchen knife or a hoe. It’s one of those things you’ll be so happy you did. I appreciate that I have someone to do the difficult pieces but I also know I can do an adequate job if need be. It’s satisfying, makes life better, and once you get into it you’ll never be tempted to use a dull cutting tool again. You won’t want to. Sue

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I Bought three Redhaven peaches like that from the farm store last year. I was horrified when I saw the butchered roots. I planted them in compost mounds and 2 out of 3 lived.

I have been grafting whips with a utility knife this year. It’s much easier to replace the blade then sharpen a knife.

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