Hello everyone!
In last months I placed an order for apricot scionwood, which I’m about to get. Since I greatly cared about the apricots i’am about to receive, I placed also an order in a local nursery for 30 plants of the Torinel rootstock in order to have a place where to accomodate the scions. BUT when they delivered me the rootsock, they were small(ish)! And now i don’t really know if i’ll be able to graft on those thin rootstock. So I panicked, and in a rush i did buy 4 peach trees to accomodate the scions. BUT! Now, reading around, appears that even peach can’t be considered a reliable rootstock for apricots. I mean, they are reliable probably if you can harvest your own scions, and you are not in the scenario “I have those scion which i can’t really replace and i’d like to be SURE that they are going to take”.
Giving that i’m a decent grafter usually, but wildly unexperienced on stone fruits, what are you suggestions? What would be your rootstock of choice for such kind of situation? Our temperature here are approaching the 60f and some apricots are about to open the flowers.
I plan to go with cleft grafts.
I’m not sure if this will help,but my success is above 80% grafting Apricot to a Nectarine.bb
I grafted seven varieties of apricots on my nectarine and peach trees. No issue. I’ve almost 100% success of grafting apricots to existing nectarine and peach trees (already grown in ground).
Are your peach trees pot-grown or bare rooted? I have never bench grafted apricots.
richfarmgarden.com has 1/4" prunus armeniaca (manchurian apricot) but minimum order is 100 for $225. They also have marianna gf8-1 and krymsk1, but size is listed at 1/8".
Cold stream farm also has prunus armeniaca, size listed at 1-2’. Those might be 1/4", maybe ask them.
I got really nice sized marianna gf8-1 from cummins last year but don’t see it on their website this year.
Burnt ridge has St. Julian 3/16" - 1/4".
The OP is in Florence, Italy!!!
Maybe the scionwood you’re going to receive will be small(ish) too. And even if it’s larger diameter than rootstock, you can still graft it.
Or, you’d do the cleft if the scion was smaller…so why not do it if the scion is bigger? Either way, only one side matches cambium of the rootstock?
Thank you everyone. So peaches seem a viable rootstock for apricots. Any suggestion on the method used for spring grafting? Or any indication on phenology of peaches when the are ready to accept budwood? (when the flowering starts? When the flowering ends? when the leaves start to emerge? When the twigs elongates?)
As for cleft grafting i didn’t knew that they could be made with rootstock smaller than the scion. I always assumed that a smaller scion was needed in order to help reducing oxidation of wood and was basically obliged for difficoult grafts
@mamuang I did buy 4 bareroot trees, which i have swiftly planted in ground. Despite the fact that i don’t expect much growth from them this year, i assumed that, as long as i keep them well hydrated, their ability to form abundant callus won’t be hindered by their bare root status.