2017 Grafting Thread

[jeremymillrood]

got some red fuji scion wood from @Lizzy and grafted on to my Dorsett Golden and Big River…

[Bart]

Arrgh!!! Yesterday I was feeling horrible about my peaches, but figured that at least I didn’t make the same mistake with my plums!.. Crap!

I won’t be able to get out to my orchard for a couple of days at the earliest and possibly not until Saturday morning. We’re looking at rain today and partly sunny in the mid 70s and low 80s for Wed, Thurs, Fri. Do the scions have a chance to survive in that weather? They’re wrapped in parafilm.

Thanks for the video Brady!

[JustAnne4]

So I grafted Lapins onto Black Gold and got this unusual tip growth. These are the 1st cherries I’ve grafted and so what has happened here? Is this normal for cherries?

[ltilton]

I swear something has been pecking at my scions - a week ago I could see some likely-looking buds, now they’ve been scraped away to dead-looking wood

[Paul]

Here in Europe some birds like martins do that. Every year I lose few grafts to them.

[BobVance]

Grafting after trees have broken dormancy?

Almost all grafts from the last year had flowers this year.

I was just noting something similar. Almost every apple graft from last year has flowers.

The only apple grafts which don’t are:
1.) Wood grafted from young seedlings. Even seedlings grafted 2 years ago don’t have flowers (though they have grown a lot).
2.) Grafts made in late May and early June. It seems they didn’t have time/energy to set flower buds
3.) Vanilla Pippin- I’m not sure why, but none of the 3 grafts (2 in Aplril and 1 in mid May, which all took) have flowers.

Edit: even with the above list which didn’t flower, that leaves 28-29 of the 30 non-seedling varieties to sample, assuming that they set and mature fruit (a big assumption).

[Antmary]

For some strange reason most of apple grafts that I received from Bob Purvis last year look unhealthy: Ginger Gold, Cox’s Orange, Frostbite and something else that I forgot. They did not flower. Cox’s orange graft produced small undeveloped flowers with green petals, the other graft did not wake up and a couple of them have randomly positioned dead buds on the brunches. I actually began to worry that they are sick with a virus or fireblight. By contrast the grafts from the GRIN scions are robust and they set fruits, which I hopefully will taste. Many A. and E. plums, sweet and sour cherries grafts set fruits. Even apricots which were not frozen, set fruits. It is nice to try fruits on the second year.

[Stan]

Maria, I’m having the same problem with tart cherry grafts from ARS scionwood as you described last year. The leaves wilt and seem like they suffer from a disease, and understock branches below the grafts also appear affected. I have already removed most of the tart cherry grafts I made from the ARS scions. The only exception is “Pamyati Vavilova” (which incidentally were the tiniest of the received ARS sticks) — those grafts look ok so far.

[Antmary]

@Stan this year I sprayed with wettable sulfur 3 times during the flowering time.
It seems to help. The first strikes before spraying claimed my Carmine Jewel and Erde Jubileum grafts. The leaves and flowers wilted and I removed the whole grafts to stop infection. The other strikes were mostly on the very top brunches where I did not spray very well. Yes, this year this disease is all over the tree not only grafts, but it seems that the sulfur helps. My last year graft from Studencheskaya, Kelleris 16, Sumadinka, Montmorency survived, flowered (and were sprayed vigorously) and they seems OK so far. Every day I walk around the tree checking for the wilted leaves and remove them promptly. This is why I began to be so paranoid about bringing diseases with the other peoples scions.
By the way, last year in June we visited our relatives in Russia and Moniliniosis was all over their sour cherries, they looked yellow all over. When I grew up we did not have any of this problems with cherries as well as fireblight.

[Stan]

I grafted the ARS scionwood on stand-alone Krymsk-5 rootstocks (planted last year), so in the worst case I will loose a few one-year-old rootstocks and not a big tree.

[Antmary]

You may try to wait if the sick scions recover and start to grow again. It happened with some of my scions.

[Antmary]

For those who might be wondering what happened with my cherry.
Moniliniosis in cherries
I actually think that GRIN should not send the scions spreading this disease all around the country.

[Matt_in_Maryland]

That’s perfectly normal vegetative growth for a cherry. When the buds break, they sometimes starfish out like a lotus leaf. Really pretty.

[Matt_in_Maryland]

I got back up to the mountain today. We’ve had rain on and off for the past four days and the trees are lush with leaves now. I surveyed my recent grafts to see if they’re showing signs of life. Here are some highlights:

@skillcult Steven Edholm’s new California-bred Wickson apple seedling called “BITE ME!” appears to have found a new home across the country in Maryland:

Here is Pomme Gris donated by @Quill:

Kidd’s Orange Red direct from the USDA repository:

Corvallis had sent me a sickly set of scionwood for Docteur Desportes. I’ve surprised myself by getting it to take:

[Matt_in_Maryland]

Here are some more recent grafts.

Pristine apple:

I am super excited about this nectarine T-bud greening up. This is John Rivers generously donated by a forum member:

These Lavina plum grafts from @Lizzy look rock solid!

@markalbob’s Black Ice plum looks pretty good:

The Purple Heart plum from another generous forum donor. You know who you are!

A few other grafts also appeared like they might take, including:

-Parfum de Septembre mirabelle plum (forum donor!)
-@BobVance’s Kokuso and Oscar mulberries
-Elliot and Belle Lucrative pears from USDA
-Frostbite and Calville Blanc D’Hiver apples from USDA

Additional grafts are too close to call, but don’t look completely dead at this juncture.

Could be a banner year for grafts! It is such a thrill to collect these varieties.

[BobVance]

I have already removed most of the tart cherry grafts I made from the ARS scions.

You may try to wait if the sick scions recover and start to grow again.

I just grafted mine about a week ago, top-working a Northstar. The NorthStar has had that exact issue (wilting blooms) for several years now and I’m hoping to find something more resistant.

Either way, I can’t blame any issue on ARS, as the host tree has the issue already. I’m planning to leave all the grafts in place- if none take (something I’m not expecting), I’m finding something else for this spot.

Many A. and E. plums, sweet and sour cherries grafts set fruits. Even apricots which were not frozen, set fruits. It is nice to try fruits on the second year.

Some of my plums set fruit the year after grafting, but it wasn’t as universal as with apples. Only two (Chojuro and Shinseiki) of the pear grafts from last year flowered (of 16 varieties, 5 of which were Asian pears).

The Euros take longer. In fact, I think only Elliot was the only Euro grafted in 2015 which flowered (all 3 of the Asians did). I still have a red fleshed pear which I grafted in 2013, which still hasn’t flowered. It must be competing with the nearby Magness, which is finally covered in bloom.

[markalbob]

surprised the black ice took off so fast…may want to watch loosely to make sure it isn’t leafing faster than callusing, but I have my fingers crossed for ya

[carot]

I could use some tips for grafting mulberries. I’m having trouble getting them to take. I tried dormant cleft grafts, doing morus nigra onto morus alba stock with very limited success. Are you grafting early or late? Is the bleeding problematic when grafting late?

I also tried bud grafts last summer and had no success at all. They doesn’t callous very good. The stock tends to dry back around the graft…

Is veneer grafting to activ growing stock a valid option?

I am having very good success with apples and stonefruit but am struggling when grafting mulberry.

[clarkinks]

The ars grin wood I’ve got from Corvalis is extremely healthy as is what I received from Geneva. They are exceptional in all ways and the program is very valuable to many of us planting test crops for a hopefully better future. Your aware Corvalis does pears and Geneva does apples. I’ve never ordered cherry scions but I’m assuming those come from Davis. Stone fruit in my area is a true game of çhance because there are so many diseases. Canker is a devastating disease and it’s everywhere here in Kansas. Never saw an orchard or tree in this state without it for very long. I have a friend in an isolated site growing a reliance peach I got him that shows no sign of canker.

[ILParadiseFarm]

Sweet Cherries come from Davis and Tart Cherries come from Geneva.