I’ve got an Indian Free peach on Citation that’s 3-4 years old. It’s about 8 feet tall, this was the first year it put out a good number of fruit and I realized that it’s a very late peach for 6b. It ripened mid-October which is not ideal here, and the peaches all had issues with rotting around the peduncle and the fruit falling off before ripe. I think that fruit issue may be a result of canker, which the tree has notable canker ooze spots.
My question - I am thinking of top-grafting the peach next year to use earlier ripening varieties. It would be great to use the established root system and trunk. However, I wonder if it’s a bad idea due to the existing canker, and if it would be better to pull the tree and replace. Thoughts?
Started grafting in early October and continue today. Some are 3 weeks and the rest are under. I have already started unwrapping the top part for the older graft as the temperature will dip below 70 in a couple of days. Humidity won’t be a problem. I read that more oxygen will heal the wound faster.
This is my 2nd year of grafting. I’m trying new things like veneer grafting and modifying it. I try old thing like T budding. I never have a successful one last year because I was using regular tape as I didn’t have para-film at that time. I remember getting cut doing whip and tongue when doing it for the first time.
I have an apple tree that have a crack on the trunk. I cut below the crack and it was really low, but manage to graft a pear onto it. It grew to about 8 feet tall in a year. Hopefully you can cut out the bad top and graft onto the healthy tissue below.
Share some of my grafting last year and this year. The one from last year never came out until this year.
My own Asian pear grafted onto apple tree. Double grafted. Bark graft failed and cut off, but cleft graft worked. Now the grafted branch is just as big as the base and has 3 major branches. Each major branches is around 3 feet long. Grafted in Fall 2022, but never leafed out until 2023. The root stock is one of the sucker that grow from the ground and use as practice.
Another one of my own Asian pear grafted onto apple tree. This one use a grafting tool in Spring 2023. The scion is around 2 or 3 inches long that grow to 3 feet tall. Notice the color of the leaves and the parent tree is in the background.
One of my Asian pear grafted to another part of the apple tree. This one was bud grafted and does nothing last year and finally came out in summer 2023. It’s around 3 feet long. Notice the thorn is long as my fingers.
Not recommended, but not impossible. The apple tree is from seed. It’s a crab apple. There’s nothing to lose. In fact, I grafted pear to pear and still the tree rejected the graft. So far, none of the graft that worked have been rejected on the apple tree. Go figure that one out. The pear branch is thriving. No regression and looks healthy. From the look of thing, they are going through their normal cycle during fall.
hell, i got 6 types of pears grafted and growing well on a 6’ mountain ash. dont know if you dont try. i learned of this off a poorly translated Russian website.
Mountain Ash is part of the rose family. Great, it work well for you. Did you got fruits from the pears yet? I plan to graft Pomegranate to Crepe Myrtle tree next Spring. Turn the flower tree into something more useful.
That depend on the scion, the source, and the root stock. If the parent was able to bear fruit, then in most case it should be able fruit in the 2nd year. I grafted a nectarine onto a peach tree in late Summer 2022. It leafed out and fruited in Spring 2023. The parent tree was able to produce fruits and the root stock was able to produce fruits. It was grafted using a good size branch by the way of whip and tongue. One of the graft was so ugly, the tree still take it.
Until I started reading threads in this forum, I didn’t fully appreciate the issue pruning cuts leave behind as they heal, namely an easy pathway for disease.
Would simply using parafilm be adequate to mitigate the risk? Or would that perhaps slow down the healing?
For the smaller cut, I let it heal by itself because it heal fairly fast. For the bigger cut, I wrap it with parafilm to prevent infection or insects. It may heal slower, but heal cleaner.
Here are my recent grafting. Grafting in 2023 and mostly during Fall season. This time I focus on citrus grafting. Citrus grafting is harder because the cambium layer is thinner than other fruit trees and the tree does not produce sap fast enough to heal quickly.
Bark grafted. Scion is navel orange. Root stock is a very large sour grape fruit. One lick of it, give me the sour puss face.
Another bark grafted. Scion is a lime. Same grape fruit root stock. This one was grafted longer for more contact. It’s just coming out. Tiny speckle of leaf.
