Everyone loves to post their successes …
Graft rejection of Itlain plum on choke cherry.
Persimmon grafts this spring…
Mohler 1… on a root shoot in the edge of my field.
Mohler 2… on a limb tip of a wild dv growing in the edge of my field.
H118
H63A 1 on a wild dv in the edge of my back yard.
H63A 2 on wild dv out in my orchard.
Journey… on wild dv out in my orchard.
Saijo on wild dv out in my orchard. Psyllids givivg it heck. Need to spray it with some capt jack.
Looking at your grafts, I thik I’ll try to scavenge for some DL seeds, so I can experiment.
I suspect I am that grower from the FB thread mentioned. Posting here for the sake of discussion.
Shown is my MIkkusu/JT-02 35 days after grafting and 2 weeks after bud break. About 3.5" of growth from one bud. Compared to my two other grafts of Zima Khurma and Lehman’s Delight it has grown little. Those each put on 16" and 10" of growth in the same timeframe pushing from many buds.
For the sake of comparison I will post the others as well:
Lehman’s Delight 100-46 (lots of flower buds on this one). Very radial growth habit. No buds are going directly up.
Zima Khurma NB-02. Very upward growth.
All were grafted here in 7b Virginia on April 28th. Photos are from 35 days after graft and about 2 weeks after bud break. All grafted to inground D. Virginiana rootstock I planted a few years ago that were each ~6 feet tall.
Interestingly the weakest growth (Mikkusu) was on the largest/tallest/thickest rootstock and the strongest growth (Zima Khurma) was on the smallest/shortest/thinnest rootstock.
I’d say it’s luck of the draw. I also see you left a LOT of buds on that stick. All you need is one, and there isn’t much benefit to having more. Often times, a single bud will grow the fastest. That being said, I think differences in rootstock vigor is the most likely factor, which is somewhat, but not entirely, correlated to size.
Have these all been watered the same? The Mikkusu shoot looks like it’s still got a decent amount of growth in it. It might just need some water and fertilizer to keep it going.
Good to know. Maybe I should have gone for the chip bud graft, then. I kind of thought the more buds the better (more chances at success, more avenues to work with). but I guess that makes sense. Only one needed. Would there be any benefit to removing the other buds now?
This was my first season grafting any sort of plant. 3 for 3 for persimmons so I guess that is not too bad. I plan on trying pawpaws in a few more years when mine have grown some more.
Not really at this point. The way I think of it with #of buds is that grafts are much more likely to fail at the union than the bud. So any more than two is really not necessary. Make extra grafts instead if you need insurance.
Extra grafts are not possible, otherwise I would have. I only have 3 root stocks and 3 varieties to graft. Unless you are saying to make multiple grafts on the same rootstock? But my assumption is that competing for nutrients and energy would make them all more likely to fail than a singular graft per root stock.
Thanks for the advice!
Bingo. Not long after they get growing, you pick one that you want to keep going and keep the rest pinched back. With the bark grafts you did, it’s easy to do 3 or 3 around the perimeter. On whip and tongue, I’ll sometimes add a chip bud below. I don’t do that so much anymore as I’ve gotten more confident in my skills.
Fascinating. I never would have that was advisable! Will have to keep that in mind if I do more grafting in the future. I have a little scion material left over. Is there any benefit to trying more grafts on the existing rootstock now? It’s starting to get late in the season, I think, and the scions old (been in the fridge over 4 months).
The times I’ve tried that with other things (citrus, avocado, mulberry), I’ve often had bad luck where the cleft or W&T take fine but the bud below fails, leaving an ugly open wound that needs to heal once the rotten bud is removed. So I’ve stopped doing them because of that, rather than increased confidence in my main graft (though that helps me feel better about it).
Yep. Welcome!!!
As you’ve probably already gathered, there’s a lot of smart and experienced growers here who are generous with their knowledge.
Prob should have done this earlier within a humidity dome (thought just having them in shade was enough)… grafted tomatoes. All failures minus one heh.
Might try the “side feeder graft” next year., where wait until union forms be4 cutting off the scion’s rootstock
Tomato grafts MUST be in a humidity chamber.
I used to get that too, and I stopped doing it. I realized in hindsight that I wasn’t doing chip buds properly. I used to think it was about getting as close a match as possible, but I realized that’s a hard way to get cambium contact unless the cuts are pretty much exactly the same. I’ve gotten better at that, but I realized this spring that it’s actually easier to do properly if the rootstock is thicker than the scion. You cut the chip a little long and make sure it’s covering the whole slope from wood to bark, and nestled in the bottom. Tie it tight and cambium contact is all but guaranteed.
I did double graft a peach last September. It was my first time summer t-budding, and I wanted a backup. Both took. There when I realized peaches aren’t hard, I’ve just been doing them at the wrong time!
i have a few more scionwood doners, so maybe ill try again this year then.
I was actually doing T-buds, because those always seem to have such great contact. They worked well for mulberries mostly when I did them as the only kind of graft. I’ve had much worse luck with T-buds on citrus and avocado, where it looked like they were done right to me, but just browned/turned to mush very soon despite being fully wrapped in parafilm.
I grafted Gerardi mulberry onto a wild mulberry growing in my back yard. It has broken buds and has about an inch of new growth. I’m going to hunt out a few more rootstocks so I can graft a few more next year.
