Although it is recommended that we use one-year wood for grafting.
But, for apples, pears and stone fruit, what would happen if we tried second year wood?
Mike
It can work OK with pears, from my experience. I think @Barkslip said he’s done it, but I can’t be sure.
I think fresher wood should callous more readily, so a person would want to do anything that gives the cambium-to-cambium contact opportunity: special care to marry the pieces as well as possible, choosing methods that expose the most cambium, binding the pieces just so, and taking extra care to make sure they don’t dry out.
As far as stone fruit are concerned I’ve done OK grafting plum but really rotten on apricot, and that’s probably a temperature thing, so you might take a look at this:
Would using a bud from older wood work in chip budding? I suspect it would, but I don’t know.
Its just that I have some really spindly first year wood but very nice second year wood on one of the trees I want to harvest scions from.
I was wondering if second year wood was an automatic death sentence for the graft.
Mike
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This Spring I used 2-year old scion from Pristine apple to add branches to a multigraft apple tree. The reason was the Pristine branch had suffered graft failure and fell off of the tree that it was grafted to, a big branch. It held on by a tiny strip of live tissue. The growth that year was very puny, just a couple of inches. So I saved scions of the older wood, which I think was two years old, and grafted that. Those grafts grew. They were not super vigorous, but being alive and growing, with healed graft unions, I think next year they will take off and grow better.
I had never grafted before, but last spring grafted 7 apple scions that were two, maybe some three years old. Five of them took, one grew five feet. They all did fine.
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Hello Guys,
What you guys are discussing is not very large caliper wood and 1 or 2 year wood is going to graft having the same take percentages. You just have to have controlled cuts and it won’t make a single bit of difference. To put into perspective what I’ve been sent, I’ve had probably 4-year wood an inch thick w/o buds on it sent in circumstances where it was the only thing someone could share. There’s bud scales on it though so that tells you that trees are ready to shoot growth from under those scales should they have become injured. On pecan for example there is a main bud with a secondary directly underneath it that is skinnier and more jagged-looking and then directly under those two buds is a bud scale which means that all within 1/2" of space on a 3/8th" piece of wood are (4) buds. Think about that. If the first one grows and fails . . . say a bird lands on it and tears it off, the one under will initiate & if it too is harmed mechanically or by insects/disease “pests” then the buds under the scar will initiate growth. So when grafting a scion . . . I have (4) chances with what appears to me and most people as 1 bud, lol.
I think about all the conversations I’ve had with the people who knew their trade better than the people teaching the trade and those that truly speak horticulture which I am not even close to speaking I’ve known, here’s the one thing that stands out the most of all time, that’s ever been written to me: “I keep saying that the wrong people are writing the books. No substitute for open-minded inquiry and sharp powers of observation.”
I’ll bet you’re a real smart cat, Mark. I can tell . . . as can others, I’ll bet @mrsg47 will attest too. The guy that said that above is an old friend of mine that was wearing an old washed out Harvard hat that I learned is actually a Harvard graduate. His specialty, teaching, (how ironic) and to have a teacher write that the wrong people are writing the books is brilliant. It has to be. haha haha ha.
Mrs. G. and you can talk up a recipe or two I’ve noticed 
Dax
P.s. that rough & old 4-year wood when you stick it at the end of a branch on a tree as a banana or bark graft can push 10’ or more if you got an older tree, or you stick that at the top of a 4" diameter tree you could see it push darn near as far.
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Thanks for your kind words, Dax. You’re just a nice person, and much appreciated.
I figured you’d have some evidence to bring to bear. Now I’ll feel a little better if I decide I just have to have some scions off of some beat up antique apple that doesn’t put out anthing but twigs!
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Thanks Dax! More recipes on the way when spring arrives! The grapes here are magnificent as you can imagine!!!
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