Hi,
A video update of my fig grafting projects showing a few of the figs i collected from the grafts done 1-2 years ago.
Jaime,
That’s an outstanding video. Congratulations my friend. You’re
definitely the man!!
Ray
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Cool video, I plan on doing the same with a bunch of young fig trees soon. Did you do the grafts when the tree was dormant or once the trees start leafing out in spring?
Wow. Your spot’s climate in Portugal must be fig heaven.
Thanks, Ray. I have been lucky with the figs and they are they are quickly becoming my favorite fruit tree (around 200 varieties, by my last count, are proof of that).
It’s not really fig heaven, Matt. That would be farther South (in Algarve you really would find fig heaven).
My zone is usually a bit on the wet side but, last year, with the severe drought we had, the figs were fantastic.
figerama,
Most of my grafts are done when the plants leave dormancy (in early spring). But, these last few years, i expanded the grafting season and had good results from March until late October. But i never graft figs during dormancy.
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I plan to do a lot of grafting this spring. I want to put 3-4 varieties on a few trees to be able to keep to consolidate the collection and make so room!
Ever tried a mulberry graft to a fig?
Jaime,
Looks like you did some chip budding and some simple whip grafts. What other grafting techniques do you use? So far I am only doing the cleft and saddle grafts.
Tony
Hi Drew,
This approach (in areas that allow it) is great because it allows more varieties in the same space.
In the future, i will probably have to manage more carefully the different varieties vigor by pruning, but that’s a minor inconvenience.
figerama,
No, i never tried it.
Tony,
The whip and tongue is not that simple. In fact, i consider it to be more difficult to do than the cleft or saddle in figs because of the pit that many cuttings have. But it has the advantage of allowing a much greater area of contact between the cambium layers. It rarely fails (when it does - very rare - it’s because the cutting is in bad shape or the rootstock is drying up - sometimes the fig tree removes the sap from the grafted branch - happens sometimes with suckers).
Also, when using the tip of a cutting, it allows for a quicker and robust growth, compared to other techniques. It only loose in robustness to the patch technique.
I also like chip-budding a lot for figs, because it’s easy to do, and it allows the best use of the scarce material we sometimes receive. This spring i received only one small dormant cutting, with only 2-3 buds, of some precious varieties and now i have 2-3 good branches of each one growing, due to this technique. So, when figs are concerned, these 2 techniques are the one’s i use the most.
You can see some of my grafts in these photo albums - https://www.flickr.com/photos/149505793@N06/albums
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Those are great photos in your albums. I’m trying to learn to graft figs now, and seeing your technique is very helpful!