I’ve created a small problem for myself. I got ahead of myself and ordered Adara and pluot scions, but now I’m struggling to figure out where to graft them. Currently, I have 3 peach trees, 1 nectarine tree, and 1 cherry tree planted on my property. I’ve also ordered another cherry tree, an apricot tree, a plum tree, and hopefully a plum rootstock from the nursery, which will be planted in the spring.
My goal is to acquire that plum rootstock that I can eventually turn into a pluot variety tree. I considered buying a pluot tree, but they aren’t available locally, and shipping one would cost as much as buying two plum trees from my local nursery.
Here’s my dilemma: What if the new trees from the nursery are too small or come as whips with no scaffolds? Or what if they have scaffolds but aren’t large enough to take the scions? I just need somewhere to graft this year, and I can regraft next year if needed. Where should I attempt to graft my scions so that they grow well enough to have more scions next year?
To add to the places to graft, I will be cutting down my wild cherry tree (that produces edible black cherries) down to a trunk this spring. The trunk will be almost 20 inches in diameter. I figure this isnt really an option but thought I’d add it here.
Is black cherry compatible? Prunus serotina per this thread may not be compatible, but I have no experience. If someone knows otherwise, I know what I am grafting soon…
I was thinking the Adara might have a chance to take, but I’m not certain. I also don’t know what kind of cherry it is. It’s like 35 feet tall and gets loaded with quarter sized cherries. It was here when we bought the house. Produced the first year with a bumper crop and absolutely nothing this year. No late frost this year either so idk what it was.
I think the Adara will for sure graft to my Stardust cherry (planted last year) but it literally only has 4 main branches and nothing else. My thought was to try to whip and tounge the Adara to the peach trees just until next year, then figure it out next spring.
if you have some photos of it we can help you determine if it is likely Prunus serotina or not. Prunus serotina is very distinct from something like a Black Tartarian cherry tree.
Ok good, I have a lot of options for where I could put them then. I tried grafting a pluot to the my stardust last year and it leaf itself out for about a week then bit the dust. I’ll try on the peach trees this year. I do have a few potted peach trees. Would you suggest just grafting them over to pluot and not buying a plum tree to serve as a rootstock? Also do you know any thing about the compatibility of pluerrys? Like sweet treat or candy heart?
Peach, plum, and apricot graft to each other. Cherry not so much. Many of the rootstocks used are just developed peach. Pretty sure the cherry crosses would graft to them as well, but have not tried it. All of the crosses are more plum than anything else. I would graft to the largest tree you have temporarily and then you can take your time to figure out what you want to do.
I can help you with a bit more information.
Can you post pics of these trees already growing? With a pic I can estimate how many limbs you have to topwork with scions
Do you want to grow the Stardust cherry or convert it to plum or pluot?
How many Adara and Pluot scions did you order?
Dennis
Kent wa
I prefer to grow out at least half of the stardust and eventually get a couple other cherry varieties on there. I have a potted reliance and hale haven peach trees that I got on clearance at the end of the season. I’m leaning towards maybe just grafting most of my scions to one of or both of those trees if they are compatible enough to get a good success rate. That way, I can sort of keep my stationary trees from being butchered up. I will send pics once the sun comes up and I get outside.
I have 5 Adara scions, 2 flavor king, 2 flavor queen, and I’d preferably like to get a pluerry growing somewhere this spring
The first tree I planted was a Fantasia Nectarine.After producing fruit for a few years,other things were added,like Peaches,Plums,Pluots and Apricots.Now,there isn’t an original fruit bearing branch on the tree.
One drawback,with using Peach/Nectarine,is the longevity may be shorter than with a Plum.
I agree that you should graft it onto the most healthiest and fastest growing tree. I grafted a plum to a peach root stock. The plum grew over 7 feet tall with significant width in a year. So, I grafted a cherry and another plum (Santa Rosa) onto the plum in late Oct or early Nov. It doesn’t have time to heal completely and I will have to see what happen in Spring of next year. The same thing with grafting nectarine onto an almond tree; grafted it late in the season.
Avalon Nectarine. I have some pruning and training work to do on this once the cold cold temps are done.
I just ordered a Pluerry and a pluot tree, but I doubt there will be any good areas to graft considering they are likely only a year old. The goal is to eventually graft multiple varieties on the pluot and pluerry, so I’m just looking to grow my scions out this summer for good scions to graft over next year.
Ok Dylan, given your stated preferences,
First a few pointers:
Since you prefer to keep Stardust cherry and add other cherry varieties, you will not likely need an interstem to accomplish that so just forget about that one until you have new cherry scions. Most cherries accept other cherry varieties.
Unlike flavor king and queen, you can graft Adara to virtually any stonefruit except I have found that my neighbor’s Bing cherry tree not compatible, although my Bing and Queen Anne have been 100% compatible with both Adara and Cherry plum. But if you have left over Adara you can root those scions to grow rootstock for future scions, this is not possible with flavor king and flavor queen scions.
Use all your flavor king and Queen scions on the peach trees. The peach rootstock will accept any plum, Pluery, pluot, or Plumcot without an interstem so you don’t really need Adara here.
You might try one Adara graft onto Stardust just to test compatibility.
Your newly ordered Pluery pluot trees yet to arrive will not need Adara to add new Pluery, pluot, Plumcot grafts.
In California the Adara scion is very popular and is used frequently to create a multi variety tree by grafting an Adara scion onto a Lovell peach rootstock as soon as the rootstock can accept a single scion. Then the Adara scaffolds and limbs can accept any stonefruit to include almonds.
So you have many options to avoid wasting the scions listed.
On your two peach trees I would choose 3-4 of the scaffolds with strong crotch angles to graft. Avoid the topmost scaffolds that have acute (less than 45degrees angles from vertical). Then remove all limbs below the 3-4 best suited grafted scaffolds. You want to create scaffolds that can fill in the complete circle around the rootstock.
Best wishes
Dennis
Kent, Wa
I appreciate it Dennis. Thank you. I will try to graft over some of my peach trees. I know I am to wait until it warms up a bit for those. Would it be best to wait until the high temperatures forecasted are about 60 for a few days? Highs are in the 60s here typically beginning in April but we arnt safe from freezing temps until the end of April. We start hitting the 80s in the second week of May.
