Is there a rough ranking of what types of fruit trees are easiest to hardest for grafting?
I’ve got apples, figs, jujubes, plums/pluot/pluerries, citrus(pomelo, orange, tangerine, mandarin, kumquat, lime and lemon) in my yard that I can practice on.
I’ve never tried grafting before, but eventually I want to convert most of my pomelo trees over to golden nugget. I’ve been reading through older grafting threads to see what supplies I need to buy, it all seems so overwhelming!
Apple and pear are very easy, timing and scion storage are required
Stone fruit (plum/pluot/peach/apricot/almond/cherry) are only a tad more difficult
Citrus is a bit more difficult but done right is relatively successful
Pecan and walnut are in the very difficult expertise needed category
Some other species are in the extremely difficult group but can be done with special preparation
What @Fusion_power said. Pear and apple are easiest afaik.
Plums seem pretty easy, but I have trouble with apricots. If that’s the case for you chipping might work for you; most of my successful apricot grafts have been chips.
Cherry, goumi and plums… seemed very easy to me… 15 grafts done 100% success.
Apples and persimmon … I have done 20+ and very high success rate… 95 % or so.
I grafted CHE to Osage orange this spring W/T … very successful… looking great.
Clark made a kind remark about that one … like it could be difficult since the wood is quite hard.
I did not notice it being difficult… but had my grafting knife shaving sharp.
TNHunter
Ok, so looks like I should just cut off branches of my one apple tree and just regraft it right back on?
Or, since the time is right I should go straight to messing with citrus grafting.
The plums and its hybrids seems sketchier- I assume I can’t take a pluerry branch and graft onto a burgundy plum branch?
Pluerries probably work the same as Japanese plums for grafting purposes. Probably some variation in grafting compatibility.
Not sure about pluerries, I’d love to add some
when they become available to buy scions. Pluots work no problem, grafted those to two peach trees of mine.
Yeah citrus to me is easy, chip buds or cleft grafts I have almost 100% success rate. With any graft it seems to be timing, and scion vigor. Either one of those two is off and the graft is likely to fail.
Regardless of what you start with, train your hand on anything. Try grafting whatever onto a branch you are about to pune off or practice bench grafting with fresh sticks. Also, it’s good to know what to expect in terms of toughness and flexibility of wood in different species. Sureness of hand and some spunk are half of success when it comes to grafting stuff you are hung up on/ is rare/ you really don’t want to mess up.
i’ve had the most success grafting figs and loquats. i’ve had the least success grafting lychees and spanish limes.
I have had much better luck grafting persimmons to wild dv rootstocks that were 1/4 inch to 5/16… whip/tounge… where I could match or get close to matching the size of the scion to the rootstock…
Than I did last spring with larger trees 1.5 inch to 5 inch… with bark grafts.
Most of my persimmon graft failures were to larger rootstocks bark grafted.
I’ve only grafted mangoes, avocados, mulberries and loquats. All grafts are difficult and easy at the same time. Three main variables: Timing (50%), scion and rootstock vigor (25%), and technique (25%), not to mention the aftercare once a graft takes. If you get the first two right, you’re 75% there.
You should be grafting dormant 1st year growth wood onto rootstock waking up in the spring under ideal conditions for the highest success rate. There are exceptions to the rule based on species and techniques.
For almost all grafts, you only need one bud.
Cleft graft has worked for me on pears, persimmon, citrus. Also bark grafts on pawpaws. All worked fairly easily.
Chip and bud grafts not so much due to my lack of knife dexterity.
The only plant I have had trouble with is feijoa. They do take as long as I do enough, but I can’t figure out what makes some successful and some not. Same time, same cambium contact…
I think grafting at the correct time, keeping the scion hydrated, and the cambium contact high are the most critical. As long as they are all in a good range, it doesn’t seem to be any issues between plants. Its just that for some fruits, we dont know what temperature range is best or we’re working with scionwood that isn’t the size or condition we would like. Or we didn’t get the scion at the optimal grafting time or temperature.
Agreed cleft often works - apple pear, and plum. I don’t likr the ugly scar IMHO that can devlop and prefer teh cleaner whip n tongue. However, thay certainly takes a little more practice. Bud grafts are pretty easy once you do the first few.
Apple is easiest in my book, then plum or peach toss up. And the worst is cherry for me.
Citrus is a great place to start. Just do cleft grafts, and wrap the scion entirely with either buddy tape or true parafilm (not the plastic cling wrap stuff). I’ve had very good luck with cleft grafts on citrus. I’ve had poor luck with T buds and chip buds.
I didn’t see avocado on your original list, but it’s one of the easiest to start with, like apple in many ways (easy to cut, callus forms readily to fill small gaps), but unlike apples the scionwood can be collected almost any time of year, and bench grafts can be done any time of year as well. Field grafting can be a challenge in hot/dry weather, with scions desiccating soon after budding out.
I actually have 6 avocado trees but, they’re finally bearing fruit this year and I didn’t want to mess with them by practicing grafting on them… but I do have tons of random seedlings all over the yard and compost pile. Maybe I can try to graft onto some seedlings.
Looking at videos of grafting and links in that other grafting megathread- it looks like cleft grafting is pretty straightforward. All the zutano seedling avocado grafted trees seem to be cleft grafted at the nurseries (I see the V shaped scar on them). Why do you mention bench grafts for avocados? These look way harder to attempt!
When I say “bench graft” I just mean grafting onto potted or bareroot seedlings that you then keep in a pot until the graft succeeds. It’s using the same technique as field grafting, but it’s harder to protect the tree that’s in the field from the sun, dry winds, etc., but you can bring a potted tree into shade or place on a tray of water to minimize drought stress while the graft is healing.
It would only work if you already have avocado seedlings in pots, you cannot easily dig one up that’s in the ground without killing it, so if your seedlings are in the ground then you only can graft in favorable weather (more rain is better).
Oops my bad, the first link I clicked on for “bench grafts” show a crazy Z looking grafting technique and I thought that was bench grafting.
I believe in SoCal, winter is the best time to graft avocados in the field.
I know what you mean. The frustration level is high for me with feijoa grafting. So much so that I just started cloning them instead. But I need to get a handle on the feijoa grafting because I have a massive feijoa seedling that has never bloomed for me. I very much want to graft nakita and waingaro onto that seedling since those cultivars are insanely productive for me here.