By the way, the grafting sealant that was my favorite, Gashell, is no longer being manufactured. I use a small amount to seal the end of my buddy tape wraps, although I’m not sure it is needed. I may be out of it by the end of next spring.
So @alan , you simply angle your Italian shears for your grafts? Thst does seem safer than holding a small, flexible branch and running a blade on it.
Hmmm
I’ve been using the Italian double cut pruners to graft for a few years now after reading some of Alan’s posts. Super easy and no worries about cutting yourself. I do still use a razor knife to cut a tongue, but that cut has never led to any finger damage for me.
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Sorry to hear of Gashell’s demise. It’s my fav for bark grafts. Years ago I bought a block of plasticine (have not used it) that may be a substitute.
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A good bloody blade halloween tale for us. Thanks for sharing. On farming,
been enjoying that British reality show “Clarston’s farm”. On one of the major services. Kinda funmy. Kinda sad. Prime I think. Go see what kinda sh-t the Brits put on their farmers.
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For fruits we might consider cutting inner tubes into one inch or so strips for those topworking jobs instead of more expensive thinner wraps. It puts more pressure on the union too I think. Punch one end down with 1/2" staples. Wrap it once or twice around, starting from the bottom and going up overlap a little so it sheds water at the seams. Pull it tight as you can going up and finish the wrap. Staple the finish end. Use your sealer then just several inches around the scion area so it stays dry. Take care it isn’t something that will drip down around the scion (like Farwell’s does). I like paste sealers for grafting. The rest doesn’t need sealing. Your cut for the scion should be a tight fit of course. You can use a small finish nail/s to tighten and hold it if needed. That can stand some abuse. I get old tubes at Motorcycle shop. Offer to buy them. They are making a living.
For the newbies - hopefully you have cut your scions when things are still dormant and put them cool in the fridge with a damp paper towel in a container. Not freezing. You want humidity not sitting in water. The scion must be dormant when you use it. Mid to late Jan. The understock must be emerging but not so advanced that it bleeds. Bark should “slip” or pull away fairly easily. Scions should be a little long so you can cut away some of the bottom that has been exposed in the fridge. Preferably past the first node. Some species may need a little different timing and treatment but grafting process is pretty universal.
There are many roads to Rome, but some are a lot longer than others. Mine is the shortest root (ha, ha, route), and where I live, time is quite a bit of money. I charge $600 to install one of my 2 or 3 variety, bearing age fruit trees that come from my 3 acre nursery less than an hour from NYC. The city is a cash trough that spreads in all directions, especially to nearby counties where my customers have their “country” homes.
Most of the trickle down from investment income doesn’t spread far form the wealthy cities where it is made.
BTW, used innertubes are not easy to come by these days.
A Crocodile waits in the mud for the clean and pretty herd to cross. And cross they must.
Bike repair shops motorcycle repair shops are good bets. I sure don’t long for the tubed nylon whitewall tires. Still, the travelers in the early 1900’s were the real adventurers. Junk tires built with slave labor rubber plantations. 'Bout couldn’t go anywhere without a flat. Still better than a horse.said they.
The star restaurant rating system was devised in Europe (France I think) by Michelen to sell their new reliable tires. They had a booklet of trips and eateries rated with stars that they handed out to encourage people to make longer and better trips by car since it was a hard thing to do with other tires of the day. This of course also meant they would use more tires.
I used to unload train loads of used tires at a retreading plant. Long ago and on a different planet. Would seldom have to reject a Michelin unless it was abused somehow. American brands were a mess. They would separate, blow out, Most couldn’t be recapped, They were killing people. Firestone and Goodyear foremost. Hopefully that has changed since. I still won’t use them.
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If either of you have a particular pair of Italian shears you recommend, please share.
I have one pair of these Light double cut pruning shears - Pruners - |DUE BUOI ITALY| - DUE BUOI Agriculture
One pair of these
Double cut pruning shears - Pruners - |DUE BUOI ITALY| - DUE BUOI Agriculture
And one pair of these
Double cut pruning shears - Pruners - |DUE BUOI ITALY| - DUE BUOI Agriculture
The last pair is my favorite. The first pair works on heavier/thicker wood better. They all get the job done
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More than I could have asked for!
Thanks!
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Shop around, you may find them at a better price.
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I originally bought them form AMLeonard. I bought a pair that looks like smsith’s fav during Covid when AML couldn’t source them, but I thought it worked about the same. I never compared them side by side, though.
The thing that is hardest for me is sharpening them in a way that doesn’t eventually damage tight contact for the length of the blades, which makes it harder to make long, clean cuts. I try to be very careful to sharpen them evenly, but I probably need to find a professional sharpener that can do it perfectly with a machine.
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Thanks for all of your reports. I couldn’t get Doc Farwell’s for less than $75 for a GALLON and $35? shipping. I couldn’t get Gashell either, so I followed your advice and made mine DIY. I bought the toilet wax and a pound of beef fat at the butcher and waited for the resin in the mail.
The powdered resin came in last night, so I did the experiment today. I started to heat up the beef fat, which was in almost all of the recipes I saw. Then I realized that this was a bad idea. I am cooking big white globs of fat until the grease comes out of them. It’s going to take a long time. What I need is rendered fat, where the whole thing will turn into liquid grease when heated. Walmart was the only store that I saw that had it. They had less than a pound of beef tallow for $14. A local Mexican butchery/deli has 1 lb. of manteca, pig fat, for $4. Sold. So much cheaper than the tallow from Walmart. Tallow or manteca is already rendered. It’s so much easier to deal with.
I had an old burner, pot, and cheap double boiler set up. It’s a tuna can with water and another can inside. I put both into the cooking pot. I put the manteca(pig lard) in the double boiler can, and heated it up. Then I added the powdered resin when the fat was liquid and hot. That seemed to help it dissolve. It stays sticky and apart from the liquid if it’s not hot enough. I decided to use glass jars, because I wanted something with a tight lid to store it in afterwards, so it wouldn’t dry out. I cut up the toilet ring wax and left it in the jars. I put the hot grease from the cooking beef fat into the double boiler can too, so it was mostly pig lard with some beef grease. I dropped the hot resin/fat mixture into the wax in the jars. It didn’t melt right away. I stirred it and it slowly started to melt. I continued to chop it up and stir it. I added a bit of wood glue to one jar, as that was recommended on some of the DIY pages. I also added a bit of clay to one of the jars to see the effect. I got out some biochar, as some recipes recommended charcoal. I hadn’t crushed it yet, so I’m going to crush it before I add it.
As the jars cooled and neared ambient temperature, they seemed to mix better and solidify a bit. I had to add a lot more wax as the process went on. I just checked it about an hour ago and the texture was pretty good: halfway between a soft solid and liquid. Today was only step one: to see if I could make something close to Doc Farwell’s. It’s pretty close in color and texture, but not nearly as uniform. For Doc Farwell’s, I have to buy a whole gallon of DIY for $75 and 30 bucks for shipping, and this is way cheaper, so that’s a good start.
I am going to go to step 2 soon: Seeing if it will actually work when I graft something. That might happen tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
John S
PDX OR
Sure enough, I grafted with the new compound today. It was harder than yesterday. I heated it up lightly to improve the flow. I also added some Canola oil. Vegetable oil is in many of the recipes. It did seem to improve the flow a bit. It still felt very fatty and waxy. I felt like I should add some chalky powder-not flour. I decided to add corn starch. It really seems to make it work better. It feels more like something that can go on semi-liquid or soft, at least, and then dry hard and waterproof. It hasn’t dried yet, so I don’t know, and I probably won’t know until tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain tonight, so we’ll get some of that info, too. Fingers crossed.
John S
PDX OR
Cornstarch and lard sound like a tasty treat for some hungry critters. Let us know how it works. Maybe add some cayenne pepper.
It does have wood glue, pine resin and canola oil in it too.
It has held on remarkably well during these huge rainstorms. It is not attractive looking. It looks like fat, which it largely is. It has become harder in the last few days, but it is still moldable. I’m a little bit worried about it melting in strong heat, especially during persimmon grafting time. I may have made adjustments to it by then.
John S
PDX OR
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I had a friend in Iowa who related toddling along behind her grandfather grafting apples. He tied the graft with cotton string, and had a 2-lb coffee can containing fresh, dairy cow manure and a wooden paint-stirrer paddle. After tying the grafts with the cotton string, he would liberally lather the graft union and scion with cow manure.
Anyone who’s ever stepped in a day-old cow manure pat can attest that while the surface may look dry and solid, immediately underneath, it is still quite moist - and remains so for quite a long time - particularly in early spring, when one would be grafting most pome/stone fruits. I would hazard a guess that the pH and bacterial populations of manure also probably have some anti-fungal properties.
While I use Parafilm M on everything I graft, from apples to walnuts, I’m not convinced that things like apples/pears even need a sealant, due to the rapidity with which they callus in.
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I think that’s especially true back east, where you go from quite cold to warm and sunny very quickly. Here in PNWet, we have a 5 month, drippy cool spring. It gets warm in June, so the spring comes slowly. It’s great for long lasting flowers, but the callusing on a graft happens more slowly, I would guess. I have had many grafts that either died or started to suffer from air exposure/being dried out.
John S
PDX OR
That’s funny, I think of our climate as being more forgiving for grafts. It’s overcast and humid and cool. I think that’s why you can just stab your quince cuttings in the ground and get new trees.
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