I’ve got some grafts of Pippi growing nicely on my autumn olive that never fruited for years (ironically, this year it looks like it may have held some). I guess I didn’t take a picture today or I’d post. The backup graft of Sweet Scarlet is also doing well there.
Thanks again JohannsGarden!
heres how some of these grafts are looking in ~2 months. i left them wrapped in foil this whole time so the bands didnt deteriorate and theres a little girdling. im glad i checked on them now. also looks like i left the bark flaps a bit long on a couple. they seem to be healing very nicely.
Well, I have waited as long as I can and I think I can safely say that everything that is going to take in my first spring ever of grafting has taken. Overall, I am pretty happy with what took, but had some notable failures.
Mulberries: I was really excited about and wanting my Illinois Everbearing, Gerardi, and Varaha mulberries to take. I think I did about 9 grafts of IE and Varaha to big stumps on a Russian alba I beheaded which bled profusely for many days, and all budded out, but then turned brown and died except for 1 Varaha graft. Photo below:
My other notable failure was grafting peach and plum to 3 Hansen’s bush cherries that I planted this spring. They were just skinny twigs with small roots and the scion wood was quite a bit bigger than the twigs I grafted to. Maybe they just did not have the roots or the strength to support the grafts. The bush cherries are growing and I will try again next year when they are bigger. Also, my grafts of Carmine goumi to a small Sweet Scarlet bush did not take, sadly. Will try again next year.
Apples: my first graft ever and the ugliest graft and taping job ever, William’s Pride to a stump of Freedom that I beheaded. Two of three took, but the smaller one got pulled by a deer leaving one graft to grow. Photo below. The other William’s Pride graft to a large side trunk of Liberty took and was growing well when a deer came by and tore it off leaving all the other branches on that tree alone. Why oh why did it only want the grafted branch?
Pears: Honeysweet grafted to a wild callery pear all 4 grafts took. I grafted Korean Giant to the other side of that same wild callery pear and the grafts leafed out and one grew 6 or so inches and then they all seem to have died back. Not sure why. Photo below:
I also have several Kieffer grafts to wild rootstock out in the fields which are doing well, and a Korean Giant to a branch of Aristocrat pear which has taken, and one Honeysweet out in the field grafted to a little wild pear which seems to have taken. I will transplant that little pear in the fall since it is sitting right next to a persimmon trunk.
Persimmon: Most of my persimmon grafts took, but sat for a long while during a cool, cloudy rainy spell after I grafted. When it finally got sunny and hot they popped out and took off. I grafted Dollywood, DEC Goliath and Rosseyanka to 6 good size wild American persimmons I beheaded that were growing out in the field. Birds landing on the new graft growth and breaking it, and deer pulling on and eating some of the grafts did not help, but most have come back and seem to be doing well. I have grown to hate deer! Here are a couple of examples.
Pawpaws: I grafted Prima 1216 and KSU Chappell to big old pawpaws in my field after I cut the centers out of them. Quite a few of the grafts took and are growing well. I left a bunch of branches below the stumps in case the grafts did not take so I could graft to them next year. Some even have fruit on them. Not sure if I should cut them off or not now that the grafts appear to have taken.
Sorry to go on so long, but I am kinda excited about my new grafting adventure. I will do a second post on my plum, peach, jujube and pecan graft attempts shortly.
Sandra
are there rules for interstem grafting? do you do both grafts at the same time? if yes, it would seem that certain grafts would lend themselves better to this case, such as cleft. does the interstem need to be of a certain length or can it be a small section without any buds? i dont know that it matters but im thinking about pawpaw interstem.
Why would you graft a pawpaw interstem?
to see if you can speed up growth of slow growing varieties like susquehanna with a faster one like chappell.
Well, I thought I would finish up my first year ever grafting update and discuss my plum, peach, jujube, and pecan grafts. I was pretty happy overall with some successes in each category and some that did not take.
Jujube: I planted my 2 jujubes late last spring 2024 and am so excited to grow and try them. They seem to like their spot and are growing well. I have a Tigertooth on its own roots and an R4T3 on Tigertooth rootstock. I grafted 3 grafts of Sugar Cane to the Tigertooth as I had read that Tigertooth may not ripen in this area as it is late. I left some Tigertooth branches also as I want to see what it might do here. All 3 Sugar Cane grafts took and are growing well. They are all flowering and so is the Tigertooth. Photo below of one of those Sugar Cane grafts with an ant and some other tiny fly on the flowers, hopefully pollinating them.
I also grafted Sugar Cane, Xu Zhou, and Shi Hong to the Tigertooth root suckers coming up around the R4T3 jujube. All of those took and look great and are blooming. The jujubes seemed the easiest to graft out of everything and the grafts started growing faster than my other fruit tree grafts. They were one of the last things I grafted except the pecan, and it was quite warm when I grafted them.
Peach: I grafted Reliance peach to 2 wild American plums that I bought from Gurney’s and planted in the field this spring. One took and is doing well. The other did not. Photo below:
Also grafted Reliance peach to a Nanking cherry that I planted in early spring. It took and is looking good. I left a few little branches on the Nanking cherry in case the peach did not take since I read that peaches can be temperamental to graft. It will be interesting to see how it will do on the Nanking, as apparently the peach may be significantly dwarfed (fine by me), but may also be too vigorous for the Nanking and may not have a long life. Peaches never have a long life for me anyway, so I am looking forward to the experiment. Photo below:
Plums: I grafted AU Rosa to wild American plum and it took and is growing well. Left some wild plum branches in case graft did not take. Trying to determine if I should remove them. Photo below:
Grafted AU Rosa and Waneta plum to another wild American plum I planted in my field and both took and are growing, although the bugs are loving the Waneta leaves. Hard to see from photo below but the AU Rosa is the upright taller branch and the Waneta is the bug eaten branch in the lower mid to left part of the photo. Will be interesting to see how they both do on one tree.
Pecans: I have a seedling pecan that is about 15 to 17 years old in my field. The named variety I planted with it at the same time promptly died. I don’t know if it has ever bloomed yet, and there has certainly never been a pecan that I have seen. I am pretty sure it needs a pollinator , so I grafted a Kanza pecan to a few of the branches using bark grafts and a cleft graft. Most of the grafts made a small leaf, but then did nothing more, but 3 of the grafts grew and seem to have taken, with one of them even producing long catkins of flowers. I guess that is a pecan flowering. Have never seen a pecan flower before. Maybe, just maybe, I will see a pecan before I die! Photos below with catkins.
So that concludes part 2 of my 2025 grafting saga. I have learned so much and it has been fun, nerve-wracking and hard work all at the same time. Looking forward to enjoying the fruits of my labors. Thanks to all who post here that have helped me to start on this grafting journey!
Sandra
Bummed to report that 70-80% of my bench grafts failed this year. I think I just let the bed dry out and the scion got rejected and dried out in that time. Luckily I still have scion for most of the varieites and will try again. It has been quite dry here unfortunately.
9 out of 10 of the stuff topworked made it and is growing. Mostly on Am. Plum, BET and robinson crabs. Was hoping to have stand alone trees but worst case I can regraft on the inground stocks next spring with the trimmings from the takes.
Enough whining though! Just hoping to clear something up. I was watching JSacadura video on summer grafting and he recommends shielding scion from sun and dehyrdation during summer OR using parafilm. I have wrapped all my scions in parafilm. I am using both dormant and green scions, but 2/3 or more are dormant.
Should I cover my scions with a light barrier/opaque material? (Tin foil, bubble mailer etc…) I notice condensation inside the parafilm. I left small leaflets as directed to prevent scion dormancy in green wood. In the past I believe I have lost grafts due to greenhouse effect inside the parafilm “cooking” the buds and obvious lack of air flow. Most of my grafts are some form of whip and tongue, especially the type where it is inserted in the side without removing roostock growth above it. I will try to do another 15-20 this month but I am not sure what level of protection is neccessary. Heres an example of what I’m talking about.
I did this as a cleft graft in April. Crimson. Crisp on g11 It seemed like it took but it died a few weeks ago. Now I see a leaf poking out of the graft area. Is it possible it wasn’t a complete graft failure ?
Thanks in large part to advice here, my first season grafting went extremely well, at least as far as I’m concerned. I need to do a thorough “inventory” to check percentages and confirm this, but I don’t think I lost any whole variety except a persimmon variety on newly transplanted trees. I did lose some individual grafts, but was honestly expecting a lot of failure. I even had a couple Jujube scions I traded for over winter and forgot in the fridge till a couple weeks ago that made it. I was able to get success on the cherry variety I was trying to salvage, life is good.
I am wondering, in south central VA, when can I try summer grafting? I have a few rootstocks that the graft failed and a few others that I didn’t have scion for at the time.
Thanks as always!
I grafted a few mulberries this late spring. The chips appear to have calloused and are attached, but there’s no growth. How long do buds take to grow? Could it still fail at this point?
Looks like a great start to your grafting journey. My experience is that each year you get better! And you learn that ugly grafts can still take. Trees want to grow if they’re in a good spot.
That is an interesting idea.
I did the reverse for apple: D’Arcy Spice is a natural semi-dwarf but failed to keep any fruit in the dry heat of my region, so I cut it back to about 11 inches & cleft grafted Connell Red (Fireside sport) which is vigorous. Worked as planned. Connell didn’t get too big (was pulled later due to all flavor gassing away in - again - the dry heat I must allow for).
It could still fail, but also there is a good chance the bud will never grow if you don’t force growth through it.
The funny thing is I got some seeds from Chappell from Cliff in Spring of 24 and those seedlings are the weakest and slowest growing out of all of the ones I’ve ever started. Maybe the vigor is on the male side. 
I’d be really curious to hear about anyone’s experiences with chip and t bud grafts this year.
I’m very seriously considering switching to a field grafting system with bud grafts over bench grafting and full scions.
Also in our opinion what species require lateral grafts vs. apical grafts?
@Toadham Thanks for the encouragement. It has been a fun although at times nerve-wracking learning experience. I am excited to do some more grafting next year.
I am keeping my eye out for wild persimmons that have shot up in the field and have already found several that should be ready to graft next spring. I also found two pawpaw suckers that have shot up about 10 feet away from one of the pawpaws I beheaded to graft to, so hopefully will be able to graft to those suckers at some point. I guess when I beheaded that tree, it thought it better send up some suckers to survive. Looking for more wild pears, too. You are right. Trees just do want to live if they have a good spot.
I am blessed here in southern Indiana to have a moderate climate with reasonably good soil and usually ample rain and plenty of sun, too. I can’t take credit for those things, but they sure have a big effect on my ability to grow things!
Sandra
hah perhaps. unsurprisingly interstemming is probably just uncharted territory with pawpaws at this point. would be a good trial to see which interstem lengths are best. if doing both grafts at the same time, year or over two years is better. if removing leaves/buds/branches from the interstem is required, etc.
