2022 - 2023 Grafting Thread

Bark is slipping nicely on my white mulberry. It has some buds swelling now.

Going to cut it off lower for the real work… later this evening after work… and add 3 or 4 bark grafts of gerardi mulberry.

My first attempt at this… hope it works.

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That’s a beautiful example of slipping bark, and illustrates why I think bark grafting is the easiest type. The cuts are dead simple. Even easier than splice because you don’t have to match two cuts.

There is cambium on both sides of the opening in that peeled away bark. Looks like you used the blade face to pry it open slightly, which is what I do too. No need for a bark lifter feature. A long, tapered scion cut will just slide right in there, and separate the bark from the wood as it goes in.

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The challenge being all that sap bleeding around the edges already… I’m worried about my mulberry grafting this year for that reason. Hopefully it works out for both of us. Thanks for posting such a clear and easy to see example of what we should be looking for!

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Shoot I didn’t know you were supposed to cover the entire cutting with tape. Is it too late to do that? I finished my grafts last week but I only put tape on the joined parts.

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@disc4tw — I had read some recommendations from Lucky P that for trees that bleed a lot like mulberries you can … make your cut a day or two ahead of time… and give them some time to bleed out some, before you graft.

I cut the top off my mulberry at around 4 ft this morning to see if the bark was slipping and see how much it would bleed today. It did immediately bleed some,… but not excessively, and I checked it a bit ago (hours later) and it does not look like it ever really continued bleeding sap, or any ran off down the tree to the ground.

It does not seem to be bleeding excessively to me at this point… I am going to try it out this evening, getting those bark grafts in place. We’ll see how it goes.

One thing is for sure, I do not want that white mulberry… I am cutting it off at about 1 ft high, and bark grafting in gerardi there. Seems like sort of a all or nothing move, but I am Ok with that.

I have 3 other gerardi’s rooting in the basement and looking good… so one way or another I should eventually get some gerardi mulberries.

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At least,put some at the scion’s tip.What is your tape and what kind of fruit trees?

Got it done…

Will wrap the scions with parafilm once that treekote dries.

Ever used a tarp strap for the final wrap ?

… you might be a redneck :wink:

It got it all nice and tight… should I remove that in a week or two ?

Any other things I should do ?

Thanks
TNHunter

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Looks great to me!!! You should add a bird perch. I just saw a similar post on FB about a plum that was destroyed with almost the exact setup you have.

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I will do that tomorrow…

Just something for birds to land on… so they do not land on my scions. Ps… when I wrapped them with parafilm earlier… they did not budge. That tarp strap is holding them tight.

Thanks

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Also,a tip was given at a grafting class,by a one time supervisor,at a research station in Washington.He said,when bark grafting,check the coating for small cracks and pin holes,the next day and add more if necessary.

My honeyberries are off to the races. The 25 Sunday night didn’t even phase them. :slight_smile:

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Looks very good, I would keep the compression on until you start getting at least several inches of bud growth. Even then I would rewrapped using something like electrical tape to keep them steady until one season of growth. Grafts should be fully healed by then. But would keep bird perch on for another year.
Dennis
Kent, wa

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Looks beautiful! You probably did a good amount of research and practiced it. Did you slice the scion on the backside too? I couldn’t clearly see that from the pic. If not, doing that will give you additional cambium contact. I have switched to the following modification of the bark graft for the same reason

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Mulberries push a lot of sap and that can sometimes get in the way of the grafts healing well since the sap gets between the cuts and keeps them from callousing together well. Some people will make cuts around the trunk below the grafts to let some of the sap bleed out. When I grafted mulberries I had 100% takes (4 or so trees) when I grafted early March and then 0 when I grafted in April, which I think was a result of the milky sap issue.

I feel like it was @Lucky_P or maybe someone else who talked about the cuts to relief the extra sap, but I’m not sure. Hopefully someone with more experience with it might chime in.

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@californicus … I cut the scion like a long flat whip and then took some of the bark off around the edges and point… like the guy in this video did.

I watched his vid and others before trying this… I liked the way he did it and he got great results and shows that.

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The video is professional. You should stick with what you like and what works for you as there are more ways to skin this cat! I liked the modification of slicing a longer strip on the back when I first saw @SkillCult videos.

I then moved further to the modified rind bark graft (from previous post) as it appealed to me better. Sometimes the bark doesn’t wrap up well in the original technique if the diameter of the rootstock is not significantly larger than the scion.

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@californicus … I watched all the skilcult grafting videos over the winter and Stephen Hayes too… lots of good advice in all those.

@disc4tw …This morn early I put in place a nice stout cattle panel tomato cage around my new mulberry graft… and put a couple of bird perch sticks just over the scions.

Hopefully that will keep them off my scionwood. May also keep a deer from reaching in to take a bite after new growth starts.

I added a bit of flash tape in there too.

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I put some plums and apples onto an unknown varietal plum tree. I am using Buddy Tape.

Apple scions were added to another Apple tree,right?
It’s not too late to add more tape.

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No I did everything on the plum tree. So far no moisture is coming out but the phloem is green. I went out and taped the ends and I will continue t cover anything exposed. Ty!

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