Would love to see this tree in bloom or with fruit!
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Ah, so all your apricots are in the greenhouse? I am still trialling in ground. Have you had fruit in prior years and if so how have your varieties compared?
Good luck for 2025!
These are apricots started from seed, from what I have read apricots come pretty true from seed but I could be wrong. Yes they are in the greenhouse, but it is unheated in the winter and the trees not wrapped just out in the cold, so -40C + is what the temps can get down to. I do bring in about a foot of snow to cover the roots. With that I have had almost zero tip die. So IMO these are pretty hardy. That said this will be the first year for fruit, they are about 6 years old. I was going to rip them out last year as I thought this experiment was a bust.
I will add that if these apricots turn out to be a good variety I am going to graft to rootstock outside of the greenhouse to really test them.
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Great, I look forward to hearing how they do for you.
Do you start the tape on the Scion above the graft and then wrap down tightly around the rootstock? That seems like it would be easier with sadle grafts, but usually I do the opposite because I let the Scion stand free by itself and tape from the bottom up.
I gave up on my grafting tool, there are too many good ways to graft and it didn’t work will for me, honestly I’m not sure a single one took with the tool, with a knife I do very well.
I honestly don’t remember.
I don’t use the grafting tool either. Just get a sharp knife and wear a thin nitrile glove on non dominant hand. You will never have a cut that way.
So for cleft grafting and basically everything else, I do the opposite and tape from the bottom up, with many grafts the scion will hold itself if not you usually can pinch them together while putting the first tape around the base.
But usually I just Parafilm it if it’s difficult, then tape, and make sure the Parafilm covers the whole scion and the union.
Nitrile gloves are really that resistance to cuts? I don’t seem to remember that, are you using heavier black ones?