But how would you know if the end of cutting is starting to callous or not? 
I wish I could wait till roots start to show through clear plastic.
Actually no, I’m not nuts I do this mostly when I prune things and stick them in the garden beds right away for rooting. Right now I got grapes, persimmon and fig cuttings that I just stuck in the dirt. Every now and then I pull them out to see if they are getting anywhere .
5 Likes
Those fig cuttings will grow no problem once the temps start getting into to 70’s. Figs like heat. Cold weather makes them sit still.
I had to wait over a month for some persimmon grafts to grow last year. Too many projects means many things get ignored and forgotten in my yard!
4 Likes
Pulling them out will damage any fine roots that may have formed. I made that mistake many times. It is an exercise in patience. I think you are going to have a higher failure rate rooting any time you are rooting into the ground. I don’t try to root anything in the ground unless I don’t care if it dies.
3 Likes
OK, yesterday I finished the grafts for this year - probably. Went thru the yard and wrote up my first ever map of trees/grafted stocks lined out/potted. 87 grafts.
30 of 'em for Dave Benscoter & his cronies at WSU. They are planning a heritage fruit orchard, with 100 varieties once grown when this was Oregon Territory & early years of WA state.
No wonder I am sore & tired. Just remembered I agreed to put one onto a former colleague’s failed commercial bench graft. Keeping Hunt Russet just for the purpose.
Tomorrow…
4 Likes
Impressive Dave. That’s a lot of grafts. I’m about half done now. I hope to finish this weekend…
Three weeks ago I was bench grafting some G11 and G890 rootstock. When I was cleaning up I took 6 pieces I had snipped off and on a whimsy stuck them in the ground to see if they would root. It looks like they all did, and are pushing leaves. But I don’t know which variety is which.
2 Likes
The difference will become obvious soon enough. G11 is so little. I just used both of those stocks first time this season.
If you did not score opposite sides of the stick where it will go into soil & dose it with rooting hormone, they might not root in time.
Try this with Bud 118 - works really well. I’ve also done it to Gen30 with about 67% success.
(BTW, patent expires on Gen890 January of 2023, so I did not propagate any this time around. Besides, I’m waiting to see how it performs in my neck of the woods. For instance, Gen30 is supposed to yield a tree 55-65% of standard in most of the States, but in eastern WA only 40%.)
2 Likes
5 Likes
I don’t think it’s all that extravagant to wrap the entire scion with parafilm. After all, it’s good practice to wrap your scions, and when you wrap them prior to grafting it means you don’t have to wrap them after you’ve grafted, wiggling things around and knocking the scion out of alignment. I’ve done this for at least three years now, probably more.
But if I had lots of scions I would use @barkslip’s method of dipping them in wax. Even better (and probably cheaper too.)
6 Likes
Mark,
Not only I wrap it before I graft, I wrap the ones I will graft before I store them in the fridge. I’ve found that they store better that way. No mold, no moisture needed.
3 Likes
Yep, me to! As soon as I have the grafts I wrap and refrigerate them. Works great. Clear a case of "Great minds think alike …)
:-)M
6 Likes
When i was kid i was over at my friends and he unwrapped his Christmas presents when his parents weren’t home and then rewrapped them after looking at everything. Not sure his parents ever did find out.
4 Likes
I started off doing that, but then I got unreasonably paranoid that I was going to run out of Parafilm! Definitely have plenty…
One roll of 3 M seems to last me a couple of years. I used to graft quite a bit. I also stretch it much thinner than what I have seen from the pics some people here did.
Good quality parafilm can stretch very well. I used to buy cheap quality parafilm on Amazon. No comparison to 3M.
3 Likes
I actually ran out of a large roll of buddy tape in less than 1 year. The fear is quite rational
2 Likes
I don’t know how big a roll is budding tape. 3 M roll is huge and heavy. I used to wrap 100+ of scion a year (not all got grafted) and used some more during actual grafting It still lasted a while.
2 Likes
I estimate I did nearly a thousand grafts in the past year. But only switched to buddy tape after the first hundred or so were done with parafilm.
5 Likes
What is the 3M product that you’re talking about? Parafilm M?
Not sure but here are my 3M black and green electrical tapes. I am probably end up kicking a bucket before I can use them all up.
11 Likes
Yes, parafilm M.
1 Like