I’ve been doing a lot of grafting this year. Much top work on plums with bark grafts, cleft grafts, side grafts and the occasional wedge graft. In my haste it appears that I may have even managed to make a successful upside down graft of a rare and treasured scion.
I have always chuckled when I heard of people accidentally graft upside down. I am obliged to confess that I now have the dubious distinction of becoming a member of that most exclusive club:
So, is it ok to dip a whole scion in hot wax? No damage to the buds? I’ve been wanting to try this but I can’t get past the idea that the hot wax might damage the buds. Is there anything special you have to do, or is it as simple as it sounds?
Yep, I’ve been doing it for years. 160 F is a great coating. I like .25 oz beeswax to 1 oz paraffin wax in a gallon of water. It’s a great mix for outdoors. You can use it for indoor/greenhouse as well.
You’ll see if you stick you finger in 160 f wax it doesn’t hurt at all. Now if you leave your finger in there for too long it does hurt, lol.
There is nothing wrong with a standard cleft graft which will most likely heal faster than what I did. I also did somewhat the same type cambium cross on some side grafts. Although they both appear to work the standard cleft is most likely superior. Nothing new here other than giving it a try and posting the picture.
Apricots, A. Plums, pears, apples and cherries are grafted mostly, although I have no pictures yet. Some A. Plums started to push buds.
Crazy peach grafting.
I did my first graft of 2017 tonight. This is one of my GoldRush scions. It is on G.969 roots with last year’s graft of Kidd’s Orange Red as an interstem.
The tree was in the garage for the winter and is starting to show growth. So I figured I’d graft it over and let it heal in the garage at 55F or so.
My Frankenstein tree. I decided to butcher this Bruce plum tree and see how many grafts I could do on it.
As of now I have 19 grafts that took and waiting on a few more . The ones that took are:
One tall cool glass of milk and a cardboard cookie for you! ha. Seriously, those all look AWESOME! You know what I liked the most? The rope you used on some of those tops. I did the same thing a couple years ago and most people acted like I was from Mars! haha. It certainly wasn’t my idea- I got it from a you tube video/ I really thought it helped hold things in place until they bonded.
I also like your rubebr-band (ish) grafting wrap. I need to get some of that. Does it come as one really long piece that you cut to size or does it come in smaller, ready to use sizes? Thanks
Those are budding rubbers. I like the 8 inch x 3/8 x 0.020 for grafting and most budding. A smaller size say 5 x 1/4 x 0.016 works better on small diameter budding.