That makes sense but it is hard to believe that it grew for 4 months and that much on nothing but built in reserves in the scion, then just happened to wilt and die on the day I unwrapped the graft point. Also, several other grafts I made the same day in May using scion collection the same time from same tree never emerged- so why didn’t they have built-in reserves that allowed them to send out 20 inches of growth? And while I concede that the omega tool is sort of an amateurish way to do grafts, I’ve had outstanding success using it on apple, pear, and plum grafts. My take on this graft was that it was somehow transporting nutrients without it having grown together, but I’ve never heard of that.
Please don’t think I’m arguing- I very much respect your opinions and experience and readily admit I’m very inexperienced when it comes to grafting, but I’m trying to learn and discussions like this help me to do so-so thanks for your input. I’ll work on my wood skills so I won’t have to rely on the tools as much. I did just buy a nice grafting knife…guess i need to learn to use it!
I think the scion was able to draw water from the graft but was unable to return it to the root stock, the mega growth was its way of compensating for the imbalance. The rootstock finaly nectarized before the scion.
Just a slight variation in thoughts. Looks like there was a little cambium growth to get it started. Then it looks like the stock below the graft died back for whatever reason and then the whole scion collapsed. Never had so little attachment after the scion growing this much. Just another thought on this unsolved mystery.
I did a bunch of bud grafts late this summer with bud wood from Geneva. I wasn’t very impressed with my knife skills and had a difficult time with P.18 rootstock size vs the size of the buds / bud sticks. On many I ended up with only one side of the chip lined up with the cambium, I need more experience with differing sizes of rootstock vs bud wood. Despite my lack of skill, I have a few of the buds actually starting to grow! I wasn’t expecting to see any growth until next spring. The buds seem determined to live and are callusing nicely on what I can see. If they survive winter these will replace the failed grafts from this spring. They look so good I’m planning to do some more with the bud wood I have left from Geneva.
V-graft, saddle (other direction, and determined if one is very hard and the other soft wood), cleft, even whip-and-tongue can all do the job. I had a thread of Winekist in a cleft graft that defied all expectation and took off.
That said, there have been plenty that didn’t take each year. Failure? If I don’t try at all.
