@Brethil, @Appleseed70, I did those grafts on my peach tree on March 29th. Keep in mind this is Santa Cruz (Northern California coast) and spring comes early here. In fact, we didn’t really have a winter this year! But I had followed advice from this forum on waiting to graft stone fruits until the tree had leafed out. It was very leafy. I’ve looked at my records and all of the pluot grafts were whip & tongue. The scions were fairly thick and I was grafting them on to 3/4 inch waterspout-type shoots. The plums I grafted half as bark grafts (because many of the plum scions were TINY) and half as whip and tongue, along with one simple V (cleft) graft. I seemed to have equal success with all types. However, I lost a couple of euro plum bark grafts (which I didn’t count in the above tally) AFTER they’d leafed out nicely and gotten some length, and I think I lost them to peach canker, because they were healthy, then leaked a lot of sap from the area of the cuts in the rootstock’s bark, and died quickly. There may be an extra risk of canker with bark grafts, but my guess is that in my case it was due to the fact that bark grafts are harder to seal completely. But overall, I had remarkable luck with plum, pluot, and apricot grafts on the peach tree, medium luck with peach grafts, and NO luck with nectarines. My overall experience with this first year of grafting (including grafts on my pear, apple, apricot, and persimmon trees) has been that for single grafts, the simple V cleft graft (not the big cleft in a cut of trunk, but a small scion grafting onto a small shoot) works just as well as the W&T and leaves less of a mess at the join. I didn’t even always cut a V in the rootstock shoot, either, often just one straight cut down the middle, and two cuts on the scion to create the V-shape.
Since I top worked almost the entire tree, which is a pretty big shock to the tree, I left THREE nurse branches, which I am only in the last month gradually eliminating. But the tree is an open center with NUMEROUS scaffold branches–like 12 or so!–because I lacked the discipline to pare it down to six. So imagine about 15 scaffolds in a circle, three of which are nurse branches, and the rest have about three different grafts each. See, I never expected more than a few grafts to take, so I overdid it! Anyway, thanks for your interest, and feel free to ask any more questions, but I’m pretty new to this so take it all with a grain of salt! I’ll try to post a couple of pictures of the tree and grafts this weekend.
I grafted a (I believe Saturn donut) peach to an apricot (puget gold) …it grew a little bit and died… figure it was incompatibility. I also have a plumcot, a hybrid plum, a japanese plum, a pluot (have no idea which one) on there…all growing great. I may use one of those as an interstem for a peach or nectarine. I might do some budding this weekend.
I had one Coe’s Golden Drop euro plum scion left back in May and slapped it onto my Katy apricot tree–seems to be doing fine, although it hasn’t put on enough volume that I can be sure. But the three pluots I grafted to the Katy apricot are flourishing.
Re: that CRFG chart about compatibility–I think Alan’s right that it may depend more on the mix of variables at the specific location, etc., because often things that shouldn’t work, do work. Other than keeping a firm division between stone fruits and pomes, we might as well experiment!
Actually I think it was Scott who said the canker might have happened on the bark grafts because they’re harder to cover. We’re not SURE it was canker, but the tree itself has canker so it’s likely, and the euro plum grafts that died were downwind from a cankery branch.
Marginal compatibility is a frustration common with inter-species grafting. Just because the graft survives in the first year or two doesn’t mean that it won’t have a significantly reduced life expectancy. It would take many trials over a decade or longer to really draw any conclusions on compatibility.
That is also because the literature tends to be unreliable on such matters. On the second year my Euro grafts on a Jap are exceedingly healthy and one has a plum.
If they keep growing through year 3 I will expect long term compatibility as long as graft unions have about disappeared. .
Murky, I don’t think it should be jarring if it is in reference to plum species, but I will try to remember in the future just to refer to them as J plums and hope all understand my meaning.
To say you are ALMOST certain the message isn’t intended to be offensive is not, however, a hugely generous assertion in this context, IMO. The idea that that could remotely, possibly be my intention is at least as potentially offensive. But wars are often started entirely due to different points of reference. It would have been better to my ear for you to say you actually are certain and assume the best.
Alan, you are right. I apologize. I should have phrased that better, especially since my post was drawing attention to word choices.
Both from the context of your post, and from your history of respectful and pertinent dialogue it is obvious that you were making a simple abbreviation and you didn’t intend to offend anyone.
My post was also terse, which surely doesn’t help in this medium. I’ve seen and heard the abbreviation in other fruit discussions and felt I should say something.
I did not mean it as an attack on you or to disparage your character. In aggregate, I am grateful to get to read your posts and admire your knowledge and perspective.
FWIW, by the “almost certain” phrase, I believe what I meant (but failed to convey) at the time of adding the qualifier to signify a degree of uncertainty, is that the author of the post would feel abashed to think some readers taken aback by the usage - not that there was any possibility that he set out to offend.
Although I believe nothing was intended other than a quick and easy way of identifying the plum it is great to have changes made when potential issues are identified. Speaking for myself I would like to see this forum be friendly to anyone that is interested in our hobby. We can all benefit from diversity which I taught classes on before retirement. With that said my hat is off to Scott and his group for making this the best forum that I have ever used. Bill
My first reaction was entirely that this represents an overkill of PC, much as I hate to use the word- but it is not my call. I am not Japanese or Japanese-American and any ethnic group should be allowed to determine what wording is offensive to them, IMO. I just don’t know exactly how you can accurately determine that.
It really isn’t in my consciousness. My wife is Ethiopian, but I don’t think of her as African or black, it is not something I think about much at all except in the context of how other people treat her if their actions might suggest racism.
I remember my father a decade or so ago saying, “You know, I was at a lecture where the subject of mixed raced marriages came up (he was a psychologist so the lecture was work related) and it suddenly occurred to me that my son was part of one”. He had actually never even thought about it before even though we had a so called mix-raced child. There is only the human race by my perception.
I was raised as a Quaker in a very liberal family and did volunteer work for their affiliated group “The American Friends Service Society” which was very active on issues of civil rights.
At this point, after all these years, it amazes me how much emphasis there still is out there on ethnic identity. Once again, not my call though.
I do think humanity would be a whole lot better off if tribal identity was dialed down way, way below what it is and has been.
Anyway, what do you think we should start calling the Redskin peach?
I’d really like it if tree companies could rename the “Kaffir Lime.” Kaffir is basically the “N word” in South Africa. I was shocked to find a peach called “Indian Blood” and although I know that the name evolved from the color of the flesh, the name is jarring…
It would indeed be nice if eventually what Alan calls tribal/ethnic identity weren’t such a source of anxiety, and could just be a source of cultural richness. But until our institutions (the police, the courts, etc.) are capable of treating people fairly, we have to keep being vigilant, IMO.
Hmmm. I’m sorry, but does the same apply to criminals - that they need to treat people ‘fairly’?
As a public servant myself, and the wife, daughter, sister, niece and cousin and co-worker at times to law enforcement professionals, I apologize in advance for the offense I will undoubtedly cause by saying anything in defense of public servants, but statements like this hit me pretty hard. The hundreds of lives saved by people I know, for example the infant my husband recently saved - and not the only one, its his second infant save -with CPR (and no, you won’t see THAT on the news. EVER) have to count for something. But alas, these days they seem to count for nothing.
Thanks Lizzy for the info!