I’ll likely wind up with about 150 grafts total including pecan, hickory, walnut, heartnut, apple, and pear. The pecans are not yet far enough along to graft. I have about a dozen callery pear rootstocks plus will double graft a few trees to get pollination partners growing together.
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This morning I discovered I grafted one BNR stub upside down, lol, luckily it’s a side branch so it doesn’t matter.
So far…
23 pear grafts
1 plum
3 goumi
9 apple
36 total so far… all looking good so far.
I will graft a few more apple and several persimmons before I finish. Persimmons not ready yet… some apples are and some are not.
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Apples I grafted on Feb. 8 have taken…I am not sure about your comment on apples not being ready yet? (Not ready for bark/rine grafts, perhaps?)
Not sure about TNHunter, but I purchased 26 B118 rootstocks about 6 weeks ago. I potted them up into 5 gallon containers with promix. Then I waited until they were in active growth before grafting. I’ve never had good graft results until the rootstock was in active growth. This is particularly true when a bare root rootstock is involved. If I were grafting using a heat tape under controlled conditions, I could change that paradigm. I’m not, my grafts are all outdoors with current temperatures hitting about 75 daily.
Interesting…
In the past 7 seasons I’ve never gotten less than 77% of grafts outdoors to dormant rootstocks to succeed. I’m speaking to dormant roots received in the mail. Grafted outside from 35 to 75 degrees, depending on the day in Feb, March or April. Usually in the 90% success vicinity. I don’t think I’ve ever had 100% doing it any method. (Reason I make 2 copies of every graft if I have enough scion and roots). (This comment pertains to apples. I’ve had some OH x F333 and OH x F97 that I got less than 77% to take in pears.)
Apple and pear are very forgiving. I usually get 95% takes with them by combining a dormant scion with an active growing rootstock. Pecan is where I struggle. If I am lucky, I get 60% takes. I have 45 pecan trees that will be ready to graft in about 2 more weeks.
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I don’t have room for pecans. I’d like to perhaps have a multi-graft tree someday.
Mostly I’ll stick to apples, but experiment a little using other plants.
I already have more apples for crossing to gain improved red fleshed offspring than I can possibly utilize. About 40 red fleshed, and about 110 that aren’t. And just a handfull of young seedlings from my efforts to this point. I do have some grafts from 2016 to 2021 that’ll bloom this year, but not a high percent.
Early results are that I like the B-10 rootstock for it’s precociousness.
I have a 2021 May Queen graft that is over 6 feet tall and has dozens of bloom buds, for instance. Even most of my B-9 I can’t say the same about.
My William’s Pride is still very tiny. I might have to graft Snow Queen nectarine soon, the tree doesn’t look good.
@BlueBerry … my Akane is just starting to show a little green in the buds… NovaMac on b9 and m7… no green showing yet… some bud swell but no green.
My others I have grafted… except for Gold Rush… i expect FB is going to take it so no grafting there. If it gets more FB this year… and lives into next spring… i may lop it off and replace it with pristine / novamac.
This is what my NovaMac on b9 (espellar) looks like today…
It is in my hot spot, south slope brick wall… but is talking its time on coming out. Only the lopped off central leader has a bud that has expressed.
I may have found a apple that will escape some of our late frosts.
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I’ve grafted a few apples onto existing rootstock (existing variety): Kerr (onto Winesap), Pristine (onto Enterprise), Priscilla (onto Liberty).
I also grafted this Spring onto a callery Frankenpear: Harrow Sweet, Drippin’ Honey, Korean Giant. Last year I grafted Ayers, Dixie Delight, Becton, Plumblee…KG and Plumbee were taken out by strong winds but Plumblee was t-bud grafted again late summer.
Each of these pears got their own callery rootstock this year: Chojuro, Raja, Turnbull, Drippin’ Honey, 20th Century and Harvest Queen.
Temps since grafting 2-3 weeks ago have been cool to cold, but I think (or hope) they should still be fine. I don’t know if the rubber bands I have are old but they’ve rotted extremely quick this year when I do parafilm and then rubber band. The rubber band then parafilm have held up fine though.
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Our season is about 3 weeks late so I’ve just started grafting in the field. Did 30 old Bartlett trees over to Yoinashi and will be doing 30 more to shinsui once the weather clears up again. Been having very good success rates bench grafting plums, so far I’ve got Omega, Duffy’s Early Jewel (both Japanese plums from NZ), Burmosa and Laetitia (South African) to take. I got 4 out of 4 takes in that batch, so my confidence is growing. Picking up more rootstock tomorrow and have a bunch more planned. Then if our apples ever start slipping, I have about 200 of those to do.
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I failed at taking a picture of King David. But I have a picture of Chico jujube, I think it’s taking off.
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I have grafted black limbertwig, Arkansas black, Pristine… onto my Crabapple, Early Mcintosh and Hudson golden gem.
Those are all actively growing, leaves, blossoms…
Early Mc today.
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I still have a Jefferies that has little or no bud expansion yet.
Redfield and Niedz bloomed and many blossoms got frozen at 19F…Granny Smith and Geneva crab are in nice bloom next. Perhaps the next tree to open a blossom is maybe going to be Esophus Spitzenburg, or Fuji.
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I grafted my indoor potted peaches 10 days ago. One cleft graft, the leaf buds starts to slowly grow . Another bud grafted, the bud push out of the parafilm.
My question is : How soon I can determine these grafts are taken?
Once it looks like the leaves are starting to get pretty big is a good sign, if there’s any shoot extension then it’s a definite, or if you can see callus tissue starting to form.
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Mine looks tiny bit green, and didn’t grow much. That is why I am worried
Depending on the temperature, it can take several week. I keep the humidity high on the new growth so it doesn’t dessicate the scion. To date I’ve only had about 50% success on stone fruit bench grafts, but after introducing them into a humidity chamber, the success has gone up a lot.
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