You can absolutely let them fruit next year.
Depends on the size of the tree, right? If you graft on an established tree, you’re fine, but if it is a little whip on a new rootstock, can’t you runt out the tree?
1 Like
I grafted Kokuso mulberry recently on the top of the Gerardi dwarf scions which I grafted several weeks before. I had no other rootstock to place them on. And I thought it will be cool if the double scions take. So far the buds are swelling on Kokuso.
Correct, you would not want to fruit Small whips, sorry, l should have mentioned that. You might be able to leave a fruit or 2 to try if your getting good growth.
A wonderful video thanks for that.
Anne,
The almond grafts took. theres 4 varieties on there. i grafted another variety onto the middle one but it didn’t take.
3 Likes
I think you need to wait a bit before getting too excited. Here’s a couple picks of grafts I made more than 2 weeks ago. They are promising, but I don’t consider them takes yet. When I see a few inches of growth, I start to get more optimistic. I’ve had a lot of grafts (especially peaches) die once they get to the stage in the below pics).
4 Likes
Just found this place and wanted to share my first time grafting experience. I grafted 58ish apples and 11 pears and a hundred or more pawpaws this year and have gotten very lucky. I made 25 or so interstem grafts with bud 118 and bud 9. And 25 or so bud9 grafts. I had to order bud9 rootstock to get the interstem as i couldnt source any from anybody, i will be growing my own in the years to come. By grafting any interstem i want to try onto bud118 and just letting it grow, a mother tree if you will to harvest interstems from. It looks as though i have 100% take on the apples and pears, i see buds swelling but no green yet. If they survive the summer and the bugs and the winter is unknown, but for now they look good.
Pawpaws didnt go as well. Most were dormant grafts, dormant wood to dormant rootstock. Drying out was an issue for this one. Some of my grafts the parafilm i used broke too early and let out all of my moisture way too soon. I did notice ones in more shade did way better. A local pawpaw grafter person said he does all of his after the rootstock throws out some leaves, doesnt water them for a few days, grafts, doesnt water for a few days and he gets most of his success that way. Says too much water makes them bleed instead of heal. I am going to try his way very soon with some scions i got from him. And next year am going to use a sturdier film to lock in that moisture if i do dormant grafting.
Ill sign off asking a question does anyone know where to get a lovell peach scion. I would like to have the actual variety so i can grow my peach seeds to use for rootstocks myself. I have lovell trees from seed but i dont like being so far away from the actual variety.
7 Likes
Today I did a second pass on some of my grafts-- placing backup grafts here and there.
I also placed the first grafts for @hambone’s Kentucky Limbertwig and Keener Seedling.
2 Likes
Thank you for that tip. My success grafting pawpaw also is “variable”. Going to try the described method too.
1 Like
You are welcome, check out his channel. In between his other videos there are a lot very very helpful videos about grafting. He really knows what he does, talking about bridge grafting, crossing cambium, grafting low but avoid failure because of apical dominance and on and on.
1 Like
From the following discussion, it sounds like none of the rootstocks still in stock for peaches are lovell/seedling, but St Julian (should work, but less certain from a compatibility standpoint) and Marianna (more compatibility risk).
High grafts vs. Low grafts
I’ve read a few journal articles that said the higher the graft, the more dwarfing the tree. Has this been true for people? To carry this “fact” to its logical conclusion, does that mean I could graft an apple scion to seedling and put the graft a meter high and get all the health and longevity benefits of seedling r/s but still have a semi-dwarf tree? Does that mean I could put the graft on a B9 like an inch above the soil, and get more of a semi-dwarf?
Inquiring minds want to know. 
It doesn’t work that way. It is strictly depending on the rootstock used. Grafting high onto a dwarfing rootstock tends to emphasize the dwarfing character of the stock. It will not dwarf a scion on a seedling rootstock.
1 Like
So on all r/s but seedling, a higher graft will make it a bit more dwarfing and vice versa?
Like, if I purchased some M111 and didn’t want a tree quite that large, I could put the graft like a foot up, and that would give me closer to the size tree I want? Or if I purchased some G935 and wanted a bit bigger of a tree than G935 typically makes, I could put the graft 1-2 inches above the ground to get another foot at the top of the tree?
Or does it not hardly make much difference at all? Like maybe a slight one if you were rigorously measuring the tree, but so minor that you wouldn’t notice with the naked eye?
Don’t think so. Look at it like this: Grafting high does pronounce the determining characteristics of the rootstock. Hence the pronounced characteristic is not always vigor. But to put in a kind of disclaimer. It doesn’t work for every characteristic. But the hight of the graft can touch vigor and e.g. some resistances/susceptibilities.
Since M111 is not a dwarfing rootstock (at least in my book) there is no dwarfing character to be pronounced.
So to get a more dwarfing effect grafting high, you would need a rootstock whose determining characteristic is “dwarfing” anyways.
The higher you graft the less initial vigor will be imparted to the scion. But when you later remove all the stock below the scion the vigor will return, not easily but it can eventually be directed to a high graft.
The vigor is always near large cuts, not near small cuts as in a scion placed high in a tree. So if you make a large cut low on the tree and place a scion right there a lot of vigor can be pushed into the scion. The vigor is near the large “plumbing” not near small cuts/plumbing.
5 Likes
When the graft failed last year did the root stock grow a new limb or simply survive all year?