It’s normally quite a lot longer than that for me. When the scion breaks dormancy is as you say really down to the weather and variety, and it would do that regardless of whether the graft was successful as long as the scion was healthy. It takes a while for the cuts to callus together, and that only happens when the temperatures are in the right range. It’s usually more than a month before I get the extension growth that indicates a successful graft.
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I asked the same question last year…
Mine were much better this year from Copenhaven. The Cummins ones were better too. It feels risky grafting onto some of those stocks with 1-2 roots, but IIRC everything took in 2024. What size did you get? I got 1/4” here.
I have started grafting pear and plum. Cherries are next. Persimmon in 3-4 weeks when they wake up.
@jerry63 … I must be 3-4 weeks ahead of you down here in southern TN. I have already grafted goumi, plums, cherry, pears and just finished apples yesterday…
My persimmons are putting out new growth now… some like JT02 and Prok way ahead of the others… but all have a little green growth now.
Persimmons are the last things I graft here.
TNHunter
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I grafted everything at the same time, usually late March to early April. Cherries, plums and asian pears are usually the first to leaf out, within 2-4 weeks. Jujube and persimmons take much longer since i graft them all early may take a few months. The longest time for a graft was a jujube graft late July of last year that never leafed out but budded out a few weeks ago…so that’s about 7 months. There were also a few persimmon grafts from last August but didn’t leaf out until this Spring, so you may have to be patients with jujube and persimmon grafts.
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Guys, please help. Is this some kind of mold or illness? Looks like it is spreading from one to another… is there anything i should do?
QUESTION- I’m new to grafting but have been leaving 2 or 3 buds on a scion when I graft. Once the buds break and show a successful graft, do I select a single bud and prune the other buds to concentrate the growth or do should I let all 3 buds grow for the season?
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When I first started grafting I culled 2 of the 3 buds on my white sapote graft and it ended up dying. So now I just let them grow for quite a while.
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My mulberry grafts are looking promising. The scions are Gerardi and Varaha and the stock is the Not-Gerardi from EL and an alba whose scion had died. I grafted in mid March before bleeding started, when buds were just showing some green. Last year, Gerardi failed miserably on the same stock, and never showed any growth. I assume it was bad scion and not bad grafting. Bigger scion grafts are whip and tongue and small scions are cleft.
Gerardi on M. alba
Varaha
Gerardi with Varaha in the background. Notice the big difference in internode length.
Gerardi
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Stupid question from a first time grafter- it looks like 4/5 of my frustrating grafts are taking (the apples and a flavor king). I used this crappy plastic wrap tape that came with the Amazon grafting knife. I crossed it over itself maybe twice while I was wrapping the ends because I could get it to stay. I see buds under them all trying to get out. Should I trust they can break through it? Or take it off and redo it? I haven’t bought the real buddy tape yet.
I also put the rubber bands on pretty tight- don’t worry?
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Don’t worry about the rubber bands until the graft is growing well. Then when you do take it off support the scion if there’s any chance of it being knocked off.
Those buds aren’t really growing yet. If they do grow more and aren’t pushing through, take a sharp knife or scissors and cut through the plastic beside or above the bud. Buds will push through more than you think.
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Too wet or damp where it started rotting? At a first glance my initial thought was it looked like it was sprayed by some herbicide or cooked with some chemical.
@zfw: Having a couple buds works in your favor. Sometimes things go wrong and a lower bud can take over. On the other hand, if two or three buds all grow, next year you have scion wood ready to go. More than once I found the second branch lower down was stronger than the uppermost. (Go figure.) I selected the strongest growth when planting out to permanent position.
I have lost sleep thinking about such things, only to have experience show me this is a process. Once I cleft grafted a bit of Winekist the thickness of a pencil lead or match stick. It took, but that wasn’t obvious until 4th of July. I worried its late start would disable it from living through that winter. It did fine. Learning to graft has helped me grow up a little.
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I grafted more pears today. Will start on apples soon. Pecans can be grafted beginning tomorrow with forecast of 81 degrees!
Here are the pears I have grafted so far this year:
1 - Abate Fetel, 1 - Ambrosia, 1 - Barlow, 2 - Beurre Alexander Lucas, 1 - Beurre Superfin, 1 - Butirra Rosata Morettini, 1 - Comice, 2 - Dana Hovey, 1 - Eward, 1 - Honeysweet, 1 - Improved Kieffer, 1 - Lazy J, 1 - Le Conte, 1 - Luscious, 1 - Niitaka, 1 - Onward, 1 - Orient, 1 - Red Bartlett, 1 - Seckel XL, 1 - Summercrisp
I still have a dozen varieties remaining to graft. I also will graft a few more trees of varieties I already have growing.
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Bench grafted Pluots. Are these good enough to be planted in garden beds outside? They were bench grafted on March 30th. Temperatures here will be ranging from 40-83 over the next 14 days and there’s still the risk of a late frost.
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Well, I finally did my first ever grafts! I finished 9 pear grafts and 5 apple grafts. The first thing I tackled were grafts onto an older Freedom Apple that never produced one apple in 15 years and was always consumed by Cedar Apple Rust. I wore myself out chopping the tall branches out of the top while trying not to bop myself in the head with the branches as they fell, and then I sawed off the 3 big scaffold branches about 4-5 feet above ground out of deer range.
By this time I was huffing and puffing and realized I should have probably left longer stumps on the scaffold branches that I was planning to graft to in case I had to cut them off and re-do them if the grafts failed. I attempted bark grafts of William’s Pride onto the stubs and was sweating with anxiety and exhaustion, but got them done.
I realized after I grafted that I should have applied the Parafilm to the scion before grafting and it would have made things easier. Oh well, lesson learned. I used Temflex rubber electrical tape to try and cover the graft union and stump, but could not get it to stick to itself or the tree. Apparently, I was too ignorant to realize that there is a backing you are supposed to remove first, which I failed to do. Who knew? I guess everyone in the world but me. Used almost the whole roll. Ugliest grafting job in the world. Photos below:
After realizing my tape mistake, I went back yesterday, laughed until I cried, and covered the whole mess tightly with some vinyl electrical tape that was actually sticky. It will be a miracle if anything takes. I did actually like making the cuts for the bark grafts to insert the scion. There was something satisfying about it and I enjoyed doing that type of graft.
I then proceeded to make some grafts to a wild callery pear, and remembered to get the Parafilm on the scion before grafting. Much easier. I added Honey Sweet grafts to one side and Korean Giant to the other side. Not sure if mixing them was a good idea, but we shall see. I did modified cleft grafts on all of those except I attempted one whip and tongue graft just for the heck of it. Not a thing of beauty, and I made a small cut on my hand while attempting it, even with the special gloves I had on. Glad I bought those. Well worth the small cost. Thanks to the person on here who recommended them to me! Pictures below of some of the pear grafts. I also added a couple of Kieffer grafts to a small wild callery pear that had sprung up in my wildflower meadow. No photos of those.
Now to finish up with plum grafts, Carmine Goumi and a couple more pears today. Then when leaves start popping on my pawpaws, persimmons, pecan, jujubes I will work on those grafts. Also adding peach to wild American plum when warmer. Hopefully SOMETHING will take. If not, a lot of work and tape wasted! Thanks to all for your encouragement, advice and information.
Sandra
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I can’t use black tape here in the deep south. It picks up too much heat from the sun. I use white tape instead.
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