I’ll be grafting peach buds and scions onto lovell rootstocks this evening. I brought the potted root stock inside a few weeks ago, during second winter when it was 19 degrees. They have broken bud and starting to leaf. I also collected scionwood the same day and stored them in ziplock baggies in the refrigerator. I think i’ll graft one or two species, either relance, redhaven or rich may, I haven’t decided yet. Rich may has a strange vertical growth pattern.
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Here’s a suspected cherry seedling (or perhaps a rootstock shoot, though there are cherry plum shoots that I thought were coming from that) that my neighbor wanted help grafting with scions of Montmorency from their dying tree right next to it.
I tried three T-buds late last summer on the main branches near the trunk, but only one still looks alive (not swelling though). I’m thinking maybe it should instead be cut back more and bark grafted?
Those buds were my first ever attempt with cherries, so I’m curious how others would approach this.
The tree to be grafted:
The only bud that still looks alive of the ones I tried last August:
Current stage of bud break on the potential rootstock:
And a wider view showing the dying tree that is the source of budwood:
I don’t know what kind of cherry the potential rootstock might be, it has small, staining, sweet fruit, and held fruit for the first time last year. My only photo of the fruit:
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Did you cut the branch off above the graft? You need to minimize competition for nutrients.
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I was originally planning to do that this spring, but since only one of them took I’m debating bark grafting lower on the trunk and just removing all the branches, including the one with a successful bud.
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It’s interesting how different stone fruit wakes up quite differently.
Plum trees don’t show much bud swell then only a week later it blooms. Maybe because the buds and blossoms are so small.
Then there are Asian pears. They show huge buds and sit at the silver tip stage for weeks.
Apparently cherry is like the Asian pear
It’s been showing juicy buds for a month now but still not breaking. Of course it’s because I want to do some grafts on it and am waiting until I see leaves unrolling that it’s taking so long…which really means I’m paying too much attention to it as it does its normal thing. 
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“I have a question on grafting. I noticed that a lot of members talk about grafting onto root stocks that are a specific commercial variety. Do you buy the specific root stock as a bare root tree, plant it in its permanent spot and then graft a scion to it the following year or do you grow it in a pot for a season and then replant it as a bare root tree.
Trees are expensive and root stock is rather cheap. I have the scions for free when I prune. I just don’t know what the procedure should be.”
To me, it just depends. I know how big my quince tree is going to be, so when I prune it, I can stick it in the ground and one year later, I have rootstock. This is the same for Montmorency pie cherries. They are already the right size. I have grafted onto plum seedlings and most got too big, but not Hollywood. I graft pear onto quince so I won’t graft onto a pear seedling. I have grafted onto apple seedlings. It’s a bit risky. One that I have is fine, because I never water it. Mountain ash seedlings will work for comice pears. I also have bought rootstock, too. I just have a suburban yard and it’s mostly filled, so I don’t really need a lot of new trees. I plant some at the schools I sub at, though. They are glad to get them. It’s a great way to get kids excited about science. Delicious science.
John S
PDX OR
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Just did my first 8 persimmon bench grafts (my first persimmon grafts ever) and put them on the greenhouse heating pad to callus. These were on D. virginiana from Missouri Dept of Conservation, and included seven female D. texana scions from Marta, and one Rossyanka scion from Fruitwood. I still have a few other Fruitwood scions and one more texana to do later.
I had trouble getting cleft grafts to line up as well as I usually can for avocados, citrus, or feijoa, so I decided to try a few W&T, even though I never seem to be able to do the tongue in the right place, or it ends up splitting too far. That’s why I basically never do them. It usually ends up looking like this before getting wrapped:
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I’m please with my Asian pear grafted onto the apple tree. I did around a dozen and it was 100 percent success. Cleft graft was the main choice. Simple and effective. There were side cleft or veneer graft too. They are leafing out the same time as the mother tree. The apple still show no sign of coming out. The graft was done in Fall 2023. Exciting since I have to wait for the new year to see the result.
The grafts that was done 1 year are slower to come out, but they are coming out now from Winter. If there is flower, I will take a picture.
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You be all right. As long as it work, that’s what matter at the end. I have been practicing W&T and the big stick is giving me a lot of problem. I have to keep adjusting, because the big stick is not forgiving. They don’t flex at all.
I been doing some bark grafts. Turning my Crepe Myrtle into a Pom. Mainly bark graft or cleft graft and a few W&T for fun. That’s what I did yesterday and today.
I did my Avocado 4 days ago and it rain 3 days straight. I cleft graft and bud graft for the insurance.
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It might be my poor skill, but I have had only about 15% take when budding avocados, but close to 90% with cleft grafts. I’ve given up on budding them entirely after mostly failing every time I try over the last couple years. Clefts are so easy with avocados and almost always take.
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When I did my bud graft, I cut them longer to give them more cambium contact. We will know if it will work in a month or 2. I never bud graft them either until now.
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Figured I’d share a couple post-wrapping photos of today’s grafts. Since I’ve never grafted D. texana before, I wasn’t sure whether it was better to use smaller “knuckle” scions, like with avocados, so I tried a wide range of scion lengths. These are the longest and shortest ones (with avocado seedlings making a cameo):
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My new pup tank and I grafted reliance and red haven onto lovell rootstocks and potted them in coffee cans. You know chewing up root stock tops and potting soil bags is hard work!
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I’m sorry if someone’s already answered this, I’ve been doing my best to read the hundreds (!) of helpful topics & comments, but I’m a new grafter and still lots to learn… for field grafting apples, what’s generally considered a good minimum overnight temperature for grafting onto existing branches (w&t, modified cleft, etc) versus for bud grafting (T or chip)? I’m not trying to rush it, I just want to know the general idea of what temperature it’s worth waiting for to maximize success of these graft categories? I’m in the UK in a really mild microclimate, so I think going by “wait until temperatures don’t drop below [ ? ]” would help me feel a bit more confident.
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Looks like you’re coming too far down with your middle cut for the tongue…looks like you’re all the way down to the heel of the splice cuts. I usually start my tongue about 1/3 to 1/2 down the top of the splice and then only come down about half of the distance from there to the heel of the splice. Kinda like this. If you cut the tongue all the way down to the splice heel you’ll always get overhang of the tongues when you fit them together.
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In that case, it split when I pressed them together, so I kept pressing them until it stopped splitting. I had only cut them about 1/3 that depth, the rest was due to splitting. I’ve had the same thing happen with feijoas, but not with mulberry or avocado.
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I live where spring temperatures swing above & below the freezing mark due to often drier conditions. Most of my grafts have been with apples: cleft, dormant chip bud, wh-&-t (& summer chip-bud, which is outside your concern here). I simply wait until the apple stock is actively pushing buds & leaves. Light freezes (e.g. to -5C°) have had no impact that I can see other than delaying callus, a matter of days.
You have the advantage of growing many cultivars that cannot endure my local conditions. Go for it.
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This year i just grafted few grafts, i will graft later cudrania tricuspidata, some grape vines, pears and that’s all for this year 
This is one of my grafts (Grafting a sweet cherry on a sour cherry rootstock).
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@NuttingBumpus nailed it. Apples will tolerate being grafted anytime after the buds start swelling (and often well before if protected against dessication).
I have some apple scions that we collected when we were pruning in December and tossed in a pile, not planning to graft at the time. Weeks later I went back to the snowed-upon pile, pulled out some likely suspects, and brought them in and refrigerated them after wrapping in parafilm. As a test I stuck a few in a jar of water, covered with a plastic bag and set them in a warm spot. They’re pushing buds now. So I would say they’ll stand up to being field grafted a little early.
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