Fuyu on my neighbors american rootstock is successful. Too bad I can’t rely on them to strip the rootstock growth, but at least they’re just up the street.
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Could I get opinions on another persimmon graft? It’s hard to see any callusing but it seems solid. Just be patient? The photos are of each side of the graft.
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While going through my garage refrigerator last night I found some scions for Oscar’s Mulberry that I received from a forum member over a year ago.
They actually looked really good for being buried in my refrigerator for a year, bark not shriveled at all, buds still intact, nice green color under the bark.
Nothing to loose in trying to graft it, so I did 2 grafts on the wild alba seedlings in the back yard. Hindsight, I should have hydrated them in a glass of water over night first.
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Going to try and graft a pouteria hypoglauca on a canistel(Pouteria campechiana) soon, this will be my most expensive graft attempt for sure. I have buddy tape but I want to say I generally have a hard time keeping the two pieces ‘tight’ - I see people use rubber bands etc for that but thinking maybe I just pull the buddy tape into more of a band shape to do the tight wraps then use the buddy tape again for more of the moisture barrier?
i wonder how long scion will stay viable. i have a handful u was going to last-minute chip bud somehow bc i don’t think it’ll stay good in the fridge very long.
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My grafting is about 50/50 at this point, so a failure on mine wouldn’t mean anything, however a successful graft on mine would definitely mean its possible. 
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So, Did you wrap the graft union when you did it? Cause they look very loose. But with a small rootstock like that, you’re gonna have to wait longer for callusing and growth signals. 6-8 weeks for signs of life..
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You’re probably familiar with my top-working project – 16 bark grafts (from two varieties) around the circumference of a big pear, which had turned out to be all rootstock. The point of 16 grafts was to ensure coverage of the hardwood ASAP to prevent rot. All grafts are growing. Previously, I had pruned each scion back to one major shoot. At this point, the best shoots are all 12-13" long (see pic).
So now I’m approaching the point where I should thin the herd, I think. My ultimate goal is a tree with four trunks, two of each variety. At this stage, I want to tilt the competition in favor of the 8 most vigorous shoots, while continuing to encourage woody growth around the perimeter and across the surface. The question is how. Should I:
- Leave the shoots alone for now.
- Head 8 of the shoots (e.g., every other) near the tip.
- Head 8 of the shoots above a low out-facing bud.
I’m not looking for expert opinion, just best guesses.
Note, I believe that having a large number of growing scions is good for the tree at this point, given how large the stump is. Feeding all those scions keeps the roots and vasculature working. So I’m not going to consider removing grafts / scions entirely, at least not at this point.
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I’m trying some apple, pear, and pawpaw scion from last year that still looked good and viable. Nice green cambium.
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Yes, the graft was wrapped with parafilm and electrical tape. I took it off to look at the graft and it has been reapplied. When I tried to jiggle the scion to see if was loose, it didn’t move. But it doesn’t look good since there are gaps. Both the scion and the rootstock are green when scratched. It has been about 5 weeks since I made the graft so I guess I could wait a few more weeks as you mentioned. Thanks for the response.
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I have two successful grafts this year from Pine Golden Pippin scion I had left from last year in the fridge. Scion from Cummins. So it’s definitely possible for apple, at least, to last a year in the fridge. Rare though, in my experience. And being thicker scion probably helps.
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It seems like your graft is hanging on despite all the fussing over it. If it were marginal the unwrapping and jiggling and other stuff could have finished it off.
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My male persimmon with multiple hybrid grafts continues to take off. I will probably reduce each successful scion to one bud this weekend.
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Gosh, I hope you’re right.
I’m going to start doing some experiments with this, but I think that’s the wrong idea.
I think what you want to do is bend them across the trunk into an umbrella shape. I think they will soon have into each other and cover the exposed stump as well as making a good shape to harvest fruit. Once you do that you can start pruning it as an open center dwarf and possibly maintain all 4 varieties.
I did this to my apple trees, but I bent them away from the trunk instead of across the trunk.
I might be wrong, but I’m looking for some experimental victims now, I still don’t have my own land here and I didn’t go home this spring as planned.
The center ones are the cluster that I top worked and turned into umbrella shapes, they looked just like yours right before I got some string and tied each shoot down.
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Ooh ooh ooh!
In my above comment I’m also talking about this!
Big trunks often rot out and I think I know the solution!
Bend each shoot across the the stump trying to get them to grow out (or in) horizontally across the stump, they will grow into each other but hopefully they will heal together and that could be added with some clever ties or scraping and taping. I think this will somehow lead to the ultimate way to heal over these large stumps, and if you have one variety you’d really like to save, you could leave that one growing upwards and bend all the others.
I’m hoping that I can do this experiment in the coming days here, but I need to find a rootstock that I can mess with.
You’ve got to cut off almost all the leaves or cut them to little stubs, bagging it, shading it, and not letting the leaves touch the bag are good. Taping on a support branch with multiple forks to hold the bag off of them is good and then wrapping them with news paper loosely and then a plastic bag is good.
Or use an Amazon mailer envelope, that’s the easiest.
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I’m worried that as the shoots grow together, there will be bark inclusions that weaken the trunk. You’re right. I think, that I might mitigate this problem with clever removal of bark, possibly grafting the shoot to each other. But I’m not sure how strong the growth would be if those grafts fail.
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Yeah afterward I did some reading and came to that conclusion roughly. I’m gonna leave the bags on for another week, then take a peek. Sometimes direct learning is nice, especially when the cost is low 
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