Both grafts have their place. A cleft heals in half the time usually of a rind aka bark graft. Cleft grafts are stronger in my opinion in many cases for the first 2 years.
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I don’t want to win. I can’t win to lose & I can’t have nothing more I can say. I’m sort of speechless again. Just like when I finished reading this.
When like @BlueBerry is finishing a graft all the way across his rootstock with two scions so the scions actually touch and so the cambium on both sides fuse and since the distance is short this time, then he’s completed his work correctly. That’s my last comment. In a friendly but speechless way, Clark.
Carpentry should be as close to exact as possible every time you go to work on a tree. I’m sorry, I’m ducking out for I have nothing I know more than what I stated and unfortunately, I’m not accredited. I need my “overalls” bib’s ‘certification’ from guys that wear them, I guess. Maybe then, maybe.
Dax
Don’t forget, “cleanliness” means something
See ya “guys”
Dax
Your a great grafter and I realize our situations are different and trees grow differently. My opinion is the wood pinching the scion wood between like a clothes pin is better against the wind and birds than just the bark holding it. Remember no pruning or anything is done on my property due to fireblight until things are dormant
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Hey Clark,
How fast do those clefts you stick on the sides on any tree there of 1" caliper or 2"?
I’ll typically see 3-5’ from a bark grafted anything. 3 if less vigorous tree and 5 if more vigor for roots or tree vigor.
Some years 6 feet from a 3/8ths or even a 1/4" stick. It’s pretty funny to watch a 1/4" stick turn into 1.5" thick at the base the same year.
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That branch is about 3" or 4" but remember this is a pear so it’s very soft wood nothing like a hickory or harder wood like you work with a lot. When it’s harder wood like a 4" or 6" mulberry then I change to rind aka bark graft quickly as shown here Che, mulberry, osage orange, fig grafting . Every tree and every situation is different. That year was hard on those Duchess d’ angoulme grafts some of that scion wood was as big as your thumb. I don’t like the way it grows or breaks. Duchess is very soft wood. It stays dormant longer then grows out very weird. The guy who I got the scions from has breaks every year because the pears get so big and the wood is soft. Those cleft grafted trees are these trees A windfall of windfalls!
No, no, no, no. I’m curious what happen on a 1" branch where you put (2) clefts. I wasn’t talking about the picture that’s healed fine, Clark. I’m curious about that stuff you hammer into and stick clefts on them. How much do they grow? I thought I was clear.
Dax
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I’m trying to learn something!
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They grow like crazy depending on the pear. Almost just like a rind graft. You know how a rind graft on the tree stump looks like a clump of wax melted down on the tree? A cleft fills that space in the middle “the gap”. So a cleft is a solid branch in a year if its 2" with waxy grafting wax melted in the bark. If the 2 sticks grow one needs cut off and the second is left. One side might die in which case you wiggle it out and let the other grow.
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Ok,
thanks,
I’m done. I wanted to learn something.
You guys have at it. I mean it. I’ll do what I do and you all be happy too. ha
alright then, okay, amen, praise mother earth.
thanks anyone.
Dax
Lol. I like bark grafts much better, because apparently I don’t cut the wood for cleft grafts quite straight enough, or the right angle. Or I wiggle them when I wrap them. It’s a great graft! I just suck at it 
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If you watched me do both grafts came back in a week or 6 months you would understand. Then you would really understand in 2 years. Given both trees are 4" or 5" pears A bark graft aka rind graft is very slow to heal comparatively sometimes taking 5 years or more. A cleft you can barely see in 2 years and you have pears already and it’s supporting them. See the cleft gap fills the graft is already solid tree but even if it didn’t that pinched wood was very strong at the time. The rind graft still looks like pooled wax on the stump of the tree it was grafted to. Now if the fruit tree is 12" no doubt we are doing bark graft we cannot split it. If I can split it and do a cleft I always will. A cleft properly done is pinching very tightly together you might get by with no grafting tape not that you would want to. The idea is split it just enough to slip the scion in the cleft but don’t split it anymore than you have to. I use a screw driver to hold the cleft open but should my finger be in that cleft it would pinch me and leave a blood blister. That’s how tight I want it.
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I think you got very valid points, Clark.
I don’t doubt you’ve lived very easily how you have so far. I have no doubt. Thanks for answering my question.
I am too clean. I look at trees before I do anything. I stand there and take a long look. Then I go to the cooler and look at all the scions in every bag, and then I step away again and think. And I do this bs until I have a picture in my mind of what the rootstock will look like and where my grafts are going to attach and how. I like nurse branches, I like long connections, and I’ll stop right there with my brakes on full.
You’re my man, Clark. Pear man. 
I knew speed could come up in some sort of grafting sense/example… there’s your thing, ya know. I breathe differently I guess. We could pears anytime as buddies though.
Dax
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The next time someone sends you pencil lead scions think of me and the cleft. When your rootstock is an inch across and in your bag are scions so small you don’t know what to do remember this.
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Okay. I’ll look very closely at your ideas and mine!
See ya now.
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I think bark grows faster than cleft. I’m doing cleft where I can because it’s quick and easy. Some of the pears I’m doing are big so bark is happening as well.
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I forget if this is 1/2" or 3/4" but I put (3) bark grafts on this apple rootstock last year and kept the better vigorous one that grew to 4’. The others I head back thru the season to push more growth to the scion once they became active and started again; there’s when I pinched. So, (3) scions like you’re saying Clark but I bark grafted them. You know, we breathe differently as to our ideas of clefts/bark(s).
Seee the ring of callus. It’s very evident. Verystrong.
Barkslip
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Let me clarify. Bark is done on larger trees with massive roots, so they are always going to be faster. Cleft is usually a smaller tree.
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That’s right, you’ll literally blow the graft out because there (may not) be enough distance for the cut of scionwood (callus distance). It won’t take wind, nor bird, nor sneeze, the vigor alone of the power of the roots will push a scion off the tree that doesn’t have enough “connection area.”
Gosh, I’m getting deep into fighting words & I don’t like being here.
Gosh!
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