2020 Grafting Thread

[Auburn]

Thanks. Good luck with your rooting. Bill

[mamuang]

Scott,
I’ve now realized that when I graft on an existing peach tree, I will not graft on small branches. I wanted to graft more varieties but did not want to chop off bigger size limbs (1-2 years old limbs) of the existing tree. So, I grafted on much smaller branches.

The grafts took fine the first year. After the winter, most of them died the following spring. A few died the 2nd spring. It’s just dawned on me that those grafts did not receive enough energy from the mother tree to really grow and establish. Lost 10+ varieties this way these past 2-3 years. I am such a slow learner.

Any peach grafts that I grafted on vigorous rootstocks or larger limbs of a mother tree have grown well. Never lost one of these.

[Auburn]

Good tip. Thanks

[Susu]

Last year I was done with my persimmon grafts by this time. This year I haven’t even done peaches yet. Miserably cold.

[zendog]

Some of the persimmons I bench grafted and put on the callousing pipe are looking good. Some others I’m not sure of yet, but a bit worried the roots got drier than I had expected. I had them wrapped in petty moist paper towels and inside plastic bags, but by the time I took them off the pipe and unwrapped them, the paper towels were fairly dry. Time will tell on those.

Things outside look surprisingly good given the weather. I grafted a large apricot rootstock I got in a trade and even though it hasn’t been in the ground very long and the weather has been ugly, these Tomcot scions look promising. Squirrels could be eating well in the coming years!

And pears do what pears always seem to do. My pear scion wood was starting to wake up from my fridge probably being too warm, but it is hard to stop a pear graft from taking…

[warmwxrules]

In my climate i only chip bud stonefruit in July/Aug and they push right around now. Way better success for me because i place lots of buds so i usually get a take somewhere. I don’t even mess with spring grafting stonefruit. I can take my time (from mid July until 1st of Sept seems fine here) and swelter in the summer heat and humidity

I usually place 2 or 3 buds per branch…you can see in this pic (from now) that the top one doesn’t look like it will push anything so i’ll prune that off to the second one that is nice and healthy.

[Susu]

You did a great job on the second one that I had to look closely to see it’s grafted.

[scottfsmith]

For propagating my own peach varieties I also have switched to summer budding. I used to not be very good at it but now they generally work; in the past I was grafting on larger shoots but found it works much better on thick pencil or smaller. I had some failures from last summer but they were all wood grabbed from dying trees I was trying to save, it was weak.

One annoying thing that has happened on my budded trees is some caterpillar or something munches on the bud and thats the end of that. I now am doing several buds. This spring one of my Nectar budded trees had both buds munched alas.

[Barndog56]

Last weekend I grafted Lapins and Van onto my Bing cherry to make it a 3 in 1. Today I grafted Enterprise, Golden Russet, and Wolf River onto year old B9 rootstocks. They were my only 3 failed apple grafts last year out of 25. I used cleft grafts for all these field grafts, instead of the whip and tongue I normally use when bench grafting.

[Ahmad]

Those fig cuttings will grow no problem once the temps start getting into to 70’s.

I think figs thrive when temperatures are in the eighties/ low nineties.

[Poncho65]

Lot of my grafts are looking pretty good. I am thinking that some that I thought were fails may even be trying to come out!

[californicus]

@scottfsmith @warmwxrules do either of you have pics of your chip bud grafting technique? I have some Qs on how to place the bud on the rootstock to get cambium contact. It would help if I can see some pics of others doing it.

[scottfsmith]

I don’t have pics handy, but you first cut out the chip and then try to make the exact same size “slot” in the stock. Often the cut in the stock is a bit wider, in which case line up one of the two sides perfectly. Wrap very tightly and protect from drying out.

[AndySmith]

I finished my grafting yesterday. Still have some scion that I’ll place on wild trees around the property. Glad this is done, it was more than I had anticipated for this season. Below are the varieties bench grafted this spring:

B.9
Farmer Spy (3) Hawaii (3) Honeygold (3) Nittany (3) Northern Spy (3)

G.210
Kidds Orange Red (3) Mutsu (4) Rambour d’Hiver (3)

G.222
Cinnamon Spice (3) Lodi (3) Old Nonpareil (3) Spartan (2)

G.890
Dudley - aka Northstar (6) Fireside (3) Granite Beauty (6) Honeygold ( 3) Lobo (5) Nittany (3) Oriole (5) Red Baron (6) Red Cinnamon (6) Regent (6) Richelieu (6) Rome Beauty Law - aka Red Rome (5)

M.7
Burgundy (6) Crimson Beauty (6) Crimson Gold (6) Farmer Spy (3) Geneva Crab (6) Hubbardston Nonesuch (6) Lady Sweet (3) Mutsu - aka Crispin (1) Newtown Spitzenberg (3) Oliver (2) Prairie Spy (6) Spigold (2)

M.106
Adams Pearmain (3) Chisel Jersey (3) Cinnamon Spice (3) Newtown Pippin (3) Reinette Clochard (3) Roberts Crab (6)

M.111
Airlies Redflesh (1) Benoni (2) Egremont Russet (2) Glockenapfel (2) Gloria Mundi (2)
Idared (2) King David (2) Mother (2) Nehou (2) Pumpkin Russet (2) Russet King (2) Tolman Sweet (2)

P.18
Delcon (3) Early Joe (3) Kingston Black (3) Macoun (3) Pomme Gris (3) Wealthy (3) Winter Banana (3)

B.118
Delcon (3) Early Joe (3) Reinette des Carmes (4) Wealthy (3) Winter Banana (3)

Quince
Clapps Favorite 1

OHxF97
Clapps Favorite 1

OHxF333
Clapps Favorite 1

OHxF87
Luscious 3

Total Trees: 233

[californicus]

Thanks. That’s my question - I find it really tricky to see if the cambiums are crossing with just lining up the barks from the chip and the bud. Instead, they can be on top of one another with one being wider than the other (like concentric rings). I tried to tilt the bud sideways a bit, to ensure some crossing points. I was wondering if it makes sense to start cutting the bud a bit wider and taper down at the end and do the opposite on the chip. This way when you line them up both, you ensure there are crossing points in the cambium. I was curious what others do here

[shitaki08]

I have a question. I was looking at my grafts and was checking the scion wood to see if they became wrinkly. It was first time grafting and was expecting the best. So it had past a month, and I decided to check them. All of them had the scionwood wrinkly and checked the grafts. They had failed.
I saw one that was wrinkly and went to look at the graft and the graft looks like it healed pretty well. It was whip and tongue. Did the graft not take but the cambium some fused together?

[scottfsmith]

I think some people try to get them to cross and other people try to line up one side. I do the latter. If lining up one side you need to look at where the cambium layer is as well as it may not be the same distance in on the two. I also give the extracted chip a strong long eyeball before cutting the stock to try to mimic the shape in the second cut. One trick I sometimes do is to cut out a dormant bud on the stock to make the spot for the chip, it can give a more similar shape since both cuts are around a bud. Also when wrapping you need to repeatedly check the alignment as it is common for it to slip. Wrap “into” the sides that are matching, not “away” from them, as that reduces slippage while wrapping.

@shitaki08, grafts can fail even after there is some fusing… it is fairly common.

[shitaki08]

Does that mean there’s no way for the graft to succeed? Should just cut off the scionwood and let the rootstock grow? @scottfsmith

[northwoodswis4]

It is possible to stop a pear graft from taking. I grafted onto three different trees last spring and not a one took! My apples did fairly well, though.

[Quill]

Andy what is Farmer’s Spy? Is it a variation of Northern Spy? Looks like a nice collection of varieties.