I started top working a big male mulberry last night. So far I have added pakastan, I sure hope it can take the winter here.
Itilton,
I usually use cleft and bark grafts. To me, it is more the type of fruit trees than the techniques that I have had success with or failure.
I have done well with apples, pears, plums even cherries. Not so much with peaches.
Did you use an ax on the other stump? Good luck on your Pakistan. The fruit is getting sweeter as the season progresses here!
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Derby,
A mulberry understock of that size is hard to get rid of. My mother has a similarly big male red mulberry in her Pennsylvania backyard. She doesn’t want it cuz it never fruits (male). She hacks at it every year, and every year it sprouts back. I’ve told her I can top-work it with a cultivar with female fruiting tendencies, so now we plan to eventually graft it over (probably w/ Geraldi for the bonus of its dwarfed size, which makes fruit-picking easier).
So if your top dies back, just graft it over again with a more cold-hardy variety, like Illinois Everbearing, or any other mulberry with strong Alba genes in its heritage.
No, lol. It looks pretty rough though doesn’t it. As you can see my brush pile is right next to this tree. I cut the smaller trunks off first. I tried to get it to fall into the pile by notching it but it refused and I had to let it fall out into the yard. I use a hand saw for cutting big stuff like this, what I call a buck saw. Kind of like this one.
Yes, I have some other scion to put on it from other mulberry varieties as back ups. Good tip though.
Vinod,
That single Pakistan mulb is equivalent to the size of five (5) average-size mulberries I can find here back East!
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I am happy to report that my graft shown grow. Asian pear 100% take, sweet cherry on carmine jewel, only grafted one and it is pushing the leaf. Plum grafted on red leaf plum and nectarine all take.
grafting is starting become my next obsession.
Not done yet, still have drawfull of scions in the refrigerator that are waiting for few more warm days. I learned a lot of grafting tricks from you .Just want to take the opportunity to thank all of you who sent me scions and taught me how to graft.
One more thing I want to know, I am a little confused by sap flow time which is good for T budding. Isn’t sap starting to flow when tree starts to grow/leaf out
?
I now keep my fingers crossed for my chip budding. will see
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Happy to report that I am done grafting this year. It was fun. I made the list of all varieties which I grafted. It was 53 (!) total. Apples - 10, plums - 14, pluots - 5, apricots - 5, sweet cherries - 6, sour cherries - 6, peaches - 3, persimmons - 3, pawpaws - 2. Thank you to everyone who send me scion wood this year, especially to Tony. It is even more fun to watch the scions to grow. So far all of them are doing good. Here are the pictures of the scions which were grafted very early in the season.
Plums plots and apricots which were grafted on the first week of March.
Sweet cherries grafted in the middle of March and on the Second picture sweet cherries grafted in the first week of April, they are catching up too.
Persimmons and pawpaws grafted first week of April have swollen buds, although it might be hard to see. Peach, grafted at the same time.
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Those look great Mary
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I like the photos with tape marking the grafts, but that isn’t a longterm way of identifying the varieties on a topworked tree.
What methods to people use to permanently identify what’s been added to what?
I use ball pen embossed soda can sheets tied with Aluminum wire.
I have to replace the tags on the non-fruiting Frankenpear tree again this year, before the wire girdles the branches.
I
On now grafts I use plastic blank labels similar to what nurseries use. Once I’m certain the graft has taken I make it a permanent aluminum label. No need to make aluminum labels for failed grafts.
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I use these zinc rectangles from Everlast :
I write on them with a soft carpenter’s lead pencil, going over each letter twice, and then I use a cheap battery powered diamond tipped etcher to print the name. Then attach with 18 gauge aluminum wire.
Just graft them and worry about it when the time comes!!! (hint: my method) I hope to finally figure out what the #$# i have growing this year from past years budding.
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I’ve finally been able to dedicate some time to grafting. I added another 16 grafts yesterday (10 pears, 3 apples, and 3 mulberries). Though with the cold (wet and high 40’s), I would have sworn I did more than that, as I was very ready to come inside after a couple hours.
Another ~10 grafts and I’ll be done with my first pass of apples and pears. Then I can move on to the plums and maybe apricots.
I’ve been using the aluminum tags this year. They are pricier, but I’m tired of having to reconstruct varieties based on my descriptions (“NNW, 3.5’, 75 deg, N tilt on Egremont Russet, cleft, 3 buds”, etc) when the sharpie fades.
http://www.amazon.com/Amekron-Impress-Aluminum-Labels-Outdoor/dp/B00U52ZIXM?ie=UTF8