Any successful graft looks beautiful to me. (In years to come no one will notice anyway.)
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For other newbie grafters… don’t give up hope. Even rough grafts sometimes take.
In the past 2 weeks, I have had what were apparently failed grafts sprout leaves. These were on grafts from early April-3 months ago! One was Ashmead’s Kernal, one was Rambo, and one is unidentified because it’s been so long that the tag disappeared. Either Sweet 16 or Grimes, so if it ever fruits, I’ll figure it out. This is my third year of grafting- it’s so gratifying!
Has anyone else had some late arrivals?
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I have a Tanner pecan with a 1 inch sprout that was grafted on April 25th. Pecan is notorious for sitting around for a few months before deciding to grow. Hint, you have to keep removing rootstock sprouts to eventually get the scion to grow.
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Two out of three isn’t bad for such an early persimmon graft. Rossyanka looks like it’s about to start a second flush:
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Got a real late start but I lucked out and got several Stella’s to take on a wild cherry. July is way too late. Lol
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Thanks to everyone here, I made my first grafts this year and they went well!
If you have done a cleft or bark graft on apple or pear and have multiple scions that are doing well, when do you select one and cut the others off?
Also, I had several whip grafts where I left 3 buds on the scionwood and now all three buds are growing. Is there a time I should reduce to one? The whip grafts are all part of frameworking part of larger old trees, so all three buds have substantial growth. They’re too close together to be separate branches.
(Aside: The frameworking book said to use scion wood with 6-8 buds but I did not have enough at that length so made due with what I had. Now I am more confident and will be trying more of this next year!)
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Wow! I thought you’d been doing this a lot longer! It’s so encouraging to see how successful even new grafters are. Definitely gave me confidence to go out and try it.
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@benthegirl … yes… did my first grafting spring 2022… a mulberry bark graft and 4 apples to m7 rootstock (all whip tounge) all were successful.
Since then lots of grafts each spring and lots of trading for scion wood. I have grafted goumis CHE cherry apple pear plum lots of persimmon mulberries, etc… with very high succeas rates on all.
But now all my life i have been a hunter, trapper, preditor hunter, fisherman… which all involve a lot of knife work… i like to carve and whittle… having good knife skills (allready) probably made my transition into grafting seem easy… or perhaps easier than it might be for some.
Having good knife skills… simply takes practice and time. Every spring i collect some extra scionwood and sit on my back porch practicing whip/toung and modified cleftgrafts for a few hours.
Good Luck to you !!!
TNHunter
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Are those dormant scions that you bark grafted?
I had never thought about that, the knife work is evident. Makes sense, glad you explained that, always made my rough cuts feel bad when looking at yours haha
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Except for time in Boy Scouts, I was never much of an outdoorsman practicing knifework. However, I was a manual draftsman back in the days before computers took over (that dates me, ha!), and had good manual dexterity that was applicable to grafting, too. Of course, I needed to study many helpful how-to videos and photos as well. Do that, practice, read the hints about timing and temperature given by Growing Fruit folks, and success will follow! And, oh yeah, don’t be afraid to fail sometimes.
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This 100-43 Persimmon graft was busting free. Wrapped with parafilm then linerless rubber splicing tape.
Pretty good callous going on.
Not thrilled about the lump the tung made but it will surely outgrow that.
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I knew better 
It wasn’t completely detached and I have a T-bud lower down that is dormant if still alive. The scion broke, there is a little still attached and maybe the upper half of the graft union separated too.
I lifted it back up, cut all the limbs down to 1 bud and most of leaf surface off. Then rebound the separated area with rubber splicing tape. I’d have given it shade cloth but it wasn’t convenient, and I’m also not sure what I’m trying to accomplish 
There are 2 back up grafts but in much less conducive circumstances, but can at least supply bud wood later if needed.
The buds on new growth are still green, not mature.
Yes. Well they were supposed to be dormant but they were budding out when I got them
(1st of July) most scion sellers don’t sell that late
Trev,
Following your lead the root sprouts from the male trees I cut early this spring are 4-5 feet and 1/2" at the base. Did you w/t all yours and how high did you make the grafts?
Thanks,
Alan
@ansayre … over the past two springs all the persimmon grafts I did were whip/tounge… with 2 exceptions… which were whip and modified cleft.
If the persimmon rootstock was quite small like my prok graft (little less than quarter inch) diameter on the rootstock… i grafted it at about 12 inches high on the rootstock… there the scion and rootstock matched well on diameter.
Others like JT02… i grafted at 3 ft high on the rootstock… had a larger rootstock there and thicker scion. I prefer to do whip/tounge where there is a match in diameter on the rootstock and scion.
In some cases there was a small difference in rootstock and scion diameter… and I did whip tounge anyway and just lined everything up good on one side. Several of those worked perfectly.
In one case Dar Sofiyivky… i did a simple whip graft. The scion I had was so tiny… I was not comfortable trying to put the tounge cut in. It failed… the one bud on the scion that looked like it might do something… never did.
I did one whip tounge this spring of mohler to a root shoot persimmon sapling… success there… looking good.
I had one more scion of mohler and found a small persimmon in the edge of my woods that had limbs reaching out in my field. I did a modified cleft graft there… because the rootstock diameter was about twice that of my mohler scion. That one has been very successful as well.
All of the larger rootstocks I grafted to out in my field the graft ended up being done at around 3 ft high. Kassandra, JT02, H63A… and man those have grown very well.
H63A was done this spring… and went 6 ft tall in no time… I tipped it at 5.5 and now it has a new central leader and several scaffold branches near 2 ft long.
It is my strongest grower this year.
TNHunter
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I checked out my H63A graft today… and that one was grafted up around 42 inches hight. It was grafted to a fine stout and tall seedling.
It was tipped at 5.5 ft and just has not slowed down on growth… has some nice first tier scaffold branches developing now.
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I’m doing another multi fruit tree starting with a lemon. I have a Palestine lime a frost owari Satsuma and a Mineola Tangelo
I just noticed the Mineola Tangelo is grafted up side down. We will see how that works out.
The fires image is the Tangelo
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@mooks
We would love to see some photos of your citrus orchard!