I unexpectedly just received scion wood for 3 varieties of Cornus mas that I’d really like to have, and I have rootstocks ready, but my limited attempts at grafting Cornus mas in a previous couple of years all failed, so I’m hoping you all can help me do better.
@JesseS and @wildforager I see you both have experience grafting Cornus mas. JesseS’s post titled “Veneer graft” unfortunately has a link to a pdf that doesn’t seem to still be there. I’ve done various bark grafts with persimmons and black walnuts, but a veneer graft isn’t exactly the same as a bark graft, is it? I’d love to see some kind of step by step instructions (tutorial or video…) for how to do exactly the style of graft that anyone has found to work well with Cornus mas.
My experience is that Cornus mas is notoriously hard to graft! I’ve had more failures than successes. I still try to graft some every year. I tried the side veneer last year and had what I thought was good success. Sadly my scions were a little too old and they leafed out and then pooped out. I suspect that the scions just used the remaining starches to leaf out a little but they never took and that was the end.
I’ve tried to chip bud in august with a fail on 6 rootstocks. One season I grafted 20 rootstocks with a cleft graft and got 3 takes.
Did I mentioned that they are hard to graft? haha. I’m lucky that I now have a friend in the university system. He is propagating stuff I send him and its win/win as he wants the genetics for his collection at school. He does tissue culture and grafts rootstocks too. His success has been about 50% in 2016. I just sent him another package recently so we will see how he does this year
A few years back I did the same deal with a nursery guy in NC. Has a big passion for ornamental plants. Anyway, he had a 40% success rate.
I’ve seen several russian videos about Cornus mas and concluded from them that it is very hard to graft with scionwood, but it is easily grafted by the budding in early summer. I have no real experience here myself.
I was also thinking about root scion. Some have had luck rooting pieces of root. Not with cornus mas though.
Yeah try budding a node!
Hey you CM guys ever hear of Redstone? I got one for possible pollination to my other dogwoods I’m growing as a hedge. It was cheap, bought from Raintree a couple years ago. I can’t find any info on it. I was just looking at the invoice, it’s not redstar.
Redstone is a USDA seedling strain from high plains research station out west. Not an actual cultivar, it apparently comes true to type from seed.
I seem to recall it is more upright in growth than the species.
Grafting c mas during dormancy is a challenge, one which I’ve solved by moving to summer t budding😀…I got around 25% takes trying various techniques over the past couple years , one of which was the side veneer. Very simple graft, and I think there are some tutorials on youtube, maybe one demoing it with mulberry.
I have heard temperature control helps ie hot callus tube , haven’t tried myself.
Jesse, I may have watched the video you mentioned. That looked fairly straightforward. If that’s as hopeful a method as any I’ll try it. It looks a lot like a cleft graft, except instead of cutting the rootstock off, the cut into the rootstock comes in at an angle from the side without decapitating the rootstock (at least not at first.) What’s the advantage of leaving the rootstock growing, though? I would have thought I’d want to get rid of any growth that could compete with the graft.
If I do a side veneer graft, when do you think the optimal time would be (in terms of stage of growth/development of the rootstock)? And then how soon after grafting should I proceed to decapitate the rootstock? Any other thoughts on any such details? What about using terminal buds? Should I use them or cut them off and use lateral buds below for my scion?
With summer T-budding, is there any way to trade new cultivars through the mail?
It’s going to take a really sharp knife to make that cut into the rootstock, isn’t it? I’m thinking my knife is going to want to follow the grain of the rootstock straight down instead of cutting diagonally down and across. I may not know how to sharpen a knife well enough to do this graft. I can also see myself accidentally cutting too far and decapitating the rootstock. I’ll find out soon enough when I try it.
Your are right that scions travel way better when dormant, but it is possible to ship budwood in the summer if it is packaged well and used promptly. I was in the same position you are in, and so I tried the dormant approach which was at least partially successful. I made multiple grafts of each variety, and even with a low percentage of takes managed to get most of the varieties growing here.
Sounds like you found the video I am remembering, what I did was just a parallel cut along the cambium of the stock making a flap that is the width of the scion, which is given a simple bevel. I grafted the cmas while everything was dormant, and afterwards I left the stock alone until I saw some green tips, then decapitated. Wrapped the scion fully in parafilm, which I think is key, because some hung out for awhile before pushing any growth. I used some terminal growth as scions if the material was beefy enough, another tricky thing about this plant is that the growth is so twiggy.
Thanks for the info Jesse, good luck all in grafting!
The wood is dense, it was used to make arrows and spears, much like serviceberry was used by the Indians. C. mas wood is so dense fresh wood sinks in water. Modern use is for tool handles.
Scion gets one bevel cut across the width, I aimed for around 1.25" length. Sometimes I lightly removed the bark on the opposite side to expose cambium for 0.5".
What varieties are you trying to add?
Some of my trees might be able to spare some budwood this summer if you don’t have luck with the dormant grafting, just remind me in July-August.
I will update this thread when I see how my t budded trees did, they looked good going into winter…
Interestingly, I have also bought c mas trees from Hidden Springs which were whip and tongue grafted, they told me they do them in the spring like that when I asked.
Thanks a lot, Jesse. I don’t know enough about cornelian cherries to want to add any particular varieties – I haven’t ever even tasted my first one yet – but I have about 7 seedlings planted that I’d like to graft over to varieties selected for superior fruit, plus several more small seedlings still in pots. I’d say about half of the ones in the ground (so 3 or 4) seem big enough to go ahead and graft now. (I figure I’ll have better success grafting bigger, better established rootstock.) I also have one purchased Elegant, so I’m basically interested in any other varieties with superior fruit. I received scions for Flava. I can’t remember the other two for sure. I think one was Pioneer.
I’ve never done any T-budding before (other than an unsuccessful, probably poorly timed attempt with persimmons.) If I wanted to practice with an easy to graft species before moving on to cornelian cherries, can anyone recommend an easy species to T-bud?
One more (probably dumb) question for you, Jesse: if I only make one main angled cut on my scion, which way does the scion go into the rootstock? If the cut into the rootstock is basically parallel and on one side of the rootstock, does the cut side of the scion face the thin flap on the outside of the rootstock or does it face inside?
I’m not really sure the larger fruited cultivars are all that superior in flavor. In my experience with brambles, bigger doesn’t always mean better. Sure some big bramble cultivars are good. But most are not. Large strawberries tend to be tasteless. So I’m not convinced, and we have zero reports about them.
Thanks for that info, When i first got this tree, I could find little info. . LeBeau Nursery describes it the following way.
‘Redstone’ was bred by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its increased fruit production and size, as well as better flavor than traditional varieties.
Oh well, maybe my seedlings will be more like the trees in the wild. Although this is open pollinated which is very interesting. Many sites list it as a cultivar, it is named so is a cultivar. More interested in wild types myself.
I did see some reports on some cultivars
“Pioneer’ was slightly earlier, a darker red, juicy, sweet and very soft when fully ripe. ‘Elegant’ was more bright red, somewhat tart and not as soft. Both were pear-shaped and about 1 ½ inches long.”
It looks like Redstone is more round. from the photos I saw.
The cut face of the scion faces inward on the stock. I didn’t find c mas all that difficult to t bud compared to other fruit, but I haven’t done that much of it . Check out fruitnut’s tutorial, he has some good pointers that make it a cinch.
Keep the scions well refrigerated (best in a bag without any additional moisture). When the rootstock leafs-out chip-bud them. That gives me much better results than grafting.
Hristo, I’ve never done any chip budding before, so I just looked up a chip budding tutorial – the one I found is from the Royal Horticultural Society – which said that chip budding is for mid to late summer. Have you chip budded cornelian cherry this time of year (when the rootstock is leafing out)? I very much appreciate your advice, but the RHS tutorial information on timing is confusing to me as someone that hasn’t ever done any chip budding before.
Some easy to graft species like apples and pears can be budded at any time as long as there are green leaves on the tree. Others (most stone fruits) give much better results when it’s warm. Yes, I have budded C. mas during May with success. The good thing about budding is that one bud could be enough. If your budwood has many buds and you manage to store it well, then you can try multiple times from May till August. As for Chip vs T-budding both will do, I simply prefer chip, because it’s easier/faster to do.