I expect you may not need an interstem to graft directly to Pluery or Pluot since they are hybrids from plum, but I would not try grafting plum directly to the others. One thing you can do is to graft your interstems directly on the peach, almond or apricot limbs then graft your plums onto the interstem. This is a bit tricky because both cherry plum and Adara are very aggressive and quite often if you leave any interstem buds on the interstem itself, it’s quite possible and very likely that those interstem buds will overtake complete dominance and your plum scions may fade away, so if you go this route I recommend only a couple interstem buds remain and you need to clip them either out or tip prune them as soon as your plum scion breaks bud. Then once you are sure the plum scion has taken, keep pruning the interstem back enough to assure the plum scion is growing. Of course if you remove all interstem buds and your plum scion fails, then everything is lost! So leave only a couple of interstem buds on to support the interstem and provide new shoots in the event your plum scions fail! But do not allow the interstem buds to outgrow your plum. This method requires almost daily monitoring. Some plums like Flavor King can handle the competition with interstem buds, but most require you to keep them under control. The simple method that worked very well for me this year was to use only dormant interstems to graft my cherry one year old growths, then I came back in Late July to start summer grafting onto those interstems with as many green scions as I could find among many of last years plum pluot grafts. This method gives nearly 100% success because you can easily control the vigor of the interstems while getting the majority of the growing season to grow your new plums and summer grafting green wood is a snap!
Dennis
On second thought, I should refer you to Kevin Barron,@spokanepeach, I recall he claims that most if not all of his plums grow on peach rootstock. I never inquired how he grafted them, but if anyone knows about grafting plums directly to peach, I would bet he knows how to do it.
Take care, maybe Kevin will respond to give you a more experienced view
Dennis
Kent, wa
I have plums growing on peach. Currently Early Laxton, Yakima, and probably Emerald Drop pluot. I’ve had several other European plums on peach but the whole tree died.
Also Raintree sold me a three or four in one European plum on peach rootstock.
Did you graft them?
Not the Raintree multi-graft, of course, but yes, I did the others.
Yakima is on Frost, Early Laxton on Indian Free, and Emerald Drop on Charlotte. I also had Reine Claude de Bavay on Charlotte, but the graft broke in strong winds. It was an unsupported bark graft with significant growth.
Pretty sure you can mix and match anything but cherry. Euro plum doesn’t mix either.
That is correct. I have many varieties of Asian plum, European plum, and Pluot grafted to my peach trees. All types of plums have taken easily and vigorously to peach. My difficult task has been getting peach or nectarine to take to peach. My success rate with peach on peach has been much lower than for plum on peach. I use a grafting tool like the one below:
Also parafilm to wrap the scions and rubber splicing tape to hold the grafts together:
What else have you grafted plums on to?
Just peach. I love peaches, nectarines and apricots. I am experimenting with plums to see if there are any that I really like as much as peaches and nectarines. By grafting I can try a lot of varieties without the commitment of putting a tree in the ground that I might want to pull out later.
Have you tried Flavor King, Flavor Supreme and Dapple Dandy? These are the best, and their flavor profiles are different enough that at least one of them should match your palate…
I am trying all of those.
I have been unsuccessful grafting Flavor Supreme, and failed to attempt another graft last year, so the wait goes on.
I did get some Dapple Dandy last year, but they had a pretty earthy taste - hopefully this year’s crop is better.
Birds got all of my Flavor Kings last year. This year, only one fruit set - but it is safely netted, so there is hope for a taste.
The pluot that has done well for me is Splash. Early and tasty.
I have a really nice looking crop of Geo Pride that should be ready to try soon as well.
Splash and GeoPride are very delicious too, but they are a step below the above three.
I got a few pluots and pluerry too - younger so never fruited. Not many ppl grow them here so probably more of a gamble and see what happens for me but I’m grafting some of these plums onto those trees along with the peach.
Question have you grew out any of the cherry plums? Nadia is one. Those are pretty
Good too. Bit smaller than the pluots and pluerry though.
I have not grafted any of the cherry plums.
I’m by no means experienced grafter - many people on here have far more years doing this. But I have had great success with a couple of plums, Moyer, and a hybrid from my great granfathers orchard - VK’s Umpqua Italian - on apricot tree I top worked. Did mid-April grafts both cleft and whip and tongue. Equal success. Peach and nectarine bud grafts took easily in August too.
Also topworked an almond for my Mom Jan 23, that now has Spice Zee Nectaplum and a Burgundy plum on it - blooming beautifully. Pluots - Flavor Grenade took easily on almond too, not producing yet but we will keep fingers crossed.
To the experts - anyone know what rootstock or interstem to use to delay apricots budding? Mine bloomed already this year and now have frozen. I need them to wait until sometime between late April and mid-may to get fruit.
I do not know how to do what you are asking about, but if it is possible to delay apricot blooming via a carefully selected root stock or interstem, it would be quite helpful.
Ahhh, the permies forum. Delay may be a viable route for certain species. I expect to use it on my persimmon rootstock for particularly sensitive varieties. I’m not an expert on stone fruit, but I imagine the same concept could apply.
I’d recommend looking for apricot threads, I’ve seen at least one here about late blooming varieties. Selecting them could be a better route than hoping for a delay from rootstock.
I am resistant to planting apricots except for ornamental value due to the rare situations where they wouldn’t be zapped by late frost. I’d rather pick fruit I’ll get to bear more than once or twice a decade in my area.
Yup you describe my EXACT situation.
In topworking this apricot last year i added two plum varieties - Moyer and VK’s Umpqua Italian. Both amazing and wonderful fresh or dried. That said the apricot has a few suckers i left underneath. Note on the left side of the tree they are days or even a couple weeks behind the right side. This got me thinking that scions could hormonally influce what’s under them too right? So then i got to wondering what moght happen if i bud grafted some apricots back to the plum higher up later this summer. Then i thought well is there a rootstock that would do this? Or a interstem?
The poster trying to grow apricots Zone 5 in NORWAY on another thread has some ideas about Himalayan varieties of apricots Ladakh region among other. Hmmm. Well I’m off to find a more appropriate thread for this i guess.
Interstem definitely could help too. Good luck!
Also, check the reference section… Rootstock Graft Compatibility