First Hollywood grafts now doing well
Thanks to Dana @dpps for wonderful scions! This one grafted in 3/16 and kept potted in greenhouse
Dennis
Kent, wa
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Pear and apple grafts are breaking buds daily. I’m still grafting a few pears and working on pecans. I’ll be grafting for at least another week.
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Looks like all but 4 or 5 of my first 100 grafts have taken. (Dried out scion may have been an issue…but I’m happy the results are better than my historical average already.) Grafted to about 10 seedlings the thickness of match stems yesterday…the % of takes may be a little less, but usually they take (getting them through the first cold season outdoors in small pots is the bigger challenge).
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Buds are breaking on the apple grafts I made about 18 days ago. So far, it looks like about 50% are in good shape. I won’t know the final count for another 5 or 6 weeks. Pear grafts are looking good so far. I have a ton of pecan grafts to do tomorrow.
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More Jujube grafts took, some were grafted recently, thanks to a forum member for sending me this
3 Chico
2 Sihong
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I put in a few more pear grafts this afternoon and got two pecan trees grafted. The Ayers pear graft has new growth 3 inches long. Not bad at all for 3 weeks after putting on the graft.
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Just about all 15 or so pears I’ve grafted have green buds swelling or good growth. I think I’m just waiting on Harvest Queen and Drippin’ Honey, but I think they’ll be fine. Mulberry grafts are only a week old at most, so time will tell how my first attempts with them go. My first apple graft took. The two I did about 10 days ago, I haven’t had the chance to check lately.
I think I did about 13 pear grafts in March and about 3 in April. All the March ones have taken except 3 on a callery are still green but have put out no leaves. Had a couple from 2022 that didn’t leaf out at all the year grafted, but did so this year…so can’t count them as failures yet at this point.
Most pear blossoms got frozen here. Most apples survived.
Bartlett has a very small number fruits on one older tree…and a couple multi-graft trees may end up having one or three fruits or something…there’s still a couple blooms even.
I counted bud break on 95 of my first 100 apple grafts. Another dozen since, including one yesterday haven’t had time (3 of the apparent failures are one variety…so I’ll blame the scions).
Apple fruit set is better than expected…must have been enough bees to do the deed on the bigger trees…some are going to need thinning to have any decent apples. And my neighbor has 3 trees about 10-12 years old on M111 that have a really heavy fruit set.
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there’s buds in the apple trees so I took a risk and grafted a few early; pink, and one of the lamb abbey. my grafting skills are bad, I tried cleft for these. on a old “Johnny Appleseed” that’s been growing for a few years.
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I also did more than a hundred (many more) grafts and I’m very pleased with the percentage of takes. I don’t have a number yet but I will eventually.
The only ones I don’t see movement are some peach grafts and some tiny toothpicky size scion grafts. I tried to keep those scions longer based on past experience and added a bit more angle for insurance. I think my challenge was getting a tight wrap and I know those were not as good as larger ones. Some I finished grafting and thought “that will never take” right after finishing.
I think pears are 100 percent but they usually are. They are the fastest bud breaking grafts for me.
My current challenge is labeling of so many grafts on a single tree. Yes, I did this to myself. I might have several grafts of the same variety on two nearby laterals and a third on a completely different branch. How do I keep up with that?
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Sorry. Didn’t see your message. Yes you can graft pawpaw right now. I grafted about 20 pawpaw scions I collected from my seedlings onto one tree a week ago and all took. It’s perfect timing growth wise and also weather this year is perfect.
Pawpaw tends to outgrow the grafted branch with new sprouts or migrate the energy to neighboring branches. Pinch any strong new growth and sprouts in the neighboring areas.
First time grafting. I’ve learned most of the pertinent information about grafting (tools, timing, wrapping, materials…) from this site.
Hooples Antique Gold on Williams Pride
Harrow Sweet on Kosui
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I also did hundreds of grafts this year. I just put a roll of masking tape or painters tape into the center pocket of my hoodie. Then put a fine tip sharpie behind my ear. Before I do the graft I make a label and stick it to my hoodie lightly. Once I wrap the rubber around the union I pull that label off my hoodie and go around the graft union. The band thickness makes a great spot for the tape to cling. At the same time it provides a little extra cover and moisture control at the union. And personally, I think it makes the band last longer in the elements. I am surprised how fast sun and rain will decimate a tightly wound rubber band.
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I’d not planned to go over 100 this year, and I didn’t order 100+ rootstocks like the past 2 or 3 years. But, failed re-grafts, seedlings, ‘multi-graft trees’, and 30 'fire-sale- Antonovka roots from Fedco…I ended up over 100 counting both pears and apples.
I left my scions outdoors rather than refrigerator several days thinking I’d put more on multi-graft trees, but didn’t. (Seeing not all my trees are at one location…gotta have 'em in the vehicle if going to graft to some of those trees.) May cut a G202 root that is 3 or 4 feet tall and graft it today. Some of my B10 that I didn’t graft last April died for some reason Dec-March.
Agree that getting a tight tape on tiny scions to tiny seedling roots is a problem…especially if you have big hands. I use a saddle graft if the sizes are equal on some of those little ones fairly successfully. (I’m talking match stick size.)
If all I have is a thin scion, I find I can make it happen successfully in many instances…but pencil-size scion is better if you have it, and I expect you agree.
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Do you leave this on long term or replace it with another tag?
I had a wind storm a few days ago that did a number on many of my tape tags. I bet twenty slid down their branch. Those I will re tape. But I usually wait to see if they take before more tagging. After that I usually just use a different color zip tie( loosely) or a colored twist tie (loosely) and let it hang to the crotch. Then I make a key. Anything young in pots I just slap painters tape on the side.
I do plastic tags in the soil too as a backup, but less now. More in the journal notes. My local crows think it is a funny game to pull all my plant tags and drop them in a pile on my deck. They have been doing this for 10 years. It is like they are messing with me for shooing them off my fruit trees. Especially veggie tray tags. They are so smart. If the world ended for humans it would become planet of the crows. Not the apes. I would put my money on the crows; clever little devils. They pick bunnies up in tag team and splat them on the ground. Then all the crows feast together. They track them in hunting parties and then 2 get on the bunnies hind legs and they flap with all their might to get up about 30 feet. Sorry about the gruesome tangent.
Moving forward I will probably start making aluminum ones as many have suggested here. And hang em with some baling wire or loose zip tie.
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I love orchard and garden journals. I have one too!!!
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Small cleft graft of the Swiss avocado cultivar “Brissago” is budding out slowly but steadily. And yes, the ortet is in Switzerland! I used my favorite type of avocado scionwood, the bud whorl, aka “knuckle,” that often forms at the part of the branch that was a dormant terminal bud before last season. They tend to produce a ton of buds in a very short length of wood.
This is after I rubbed off about 4 other shoots, and the circular marks you can see are where the flower panicles were attached last spring:
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