Good to know that this method works. I plan later to add a few a few self pollinating branches onto my female muscadines.
Hi Sara,
How have your grafts held up now that you have a year or so to assess?
My question is at what stage of growth did you perform the graft: Early spring, summer, fall?
I have not tried cleft grafts yet but May next year.
I performed seven green on green chip buds this fall and bled the vines below the graft, so far they look healthy and the bleeding is no longer needed since they are now dormant. Have placed clear plastic humidity tents over each graft thru the winter to ward off some of the freeze exposure and to encourage callousing on sunny days.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I grafted mine in May, but none survived to next year. If you read through the thread, you will see others are much more successful than me. Some even fruited the same year.
Good luck!
Sara
Hi Sara,
Well I have had poor results with grape grafting, so this fall I tried an experiment after reviewing the root cause of my failures (mold around grafts due to sap). So I decided to try chip budding in fall as the sap pressures are on decline. So far it seems to be working, by spring if my seven buds are healthy enough to break out, I will then know. You can review my technique under my post.
Dennis
My neighbor had a fence with some old Concord grapes which they
didn’t like to eat and they were going to remove them. I suggested we graft them so I
cleft grafted seedless grapes. I used dormant scionwood on woody dormant vines as spring broke. 8 of 10 grafts were successful. Last summer in their first season thanks to mature root stock the new vines grew 25-35 feet. This spring they fruited and I counted more than 100 grape clusters. It’s going to be a grape fall harvest.
Now the fence is completely covered with a new kind of grape. This is the first season after the grafts.
I grafted at the end of April (Zone 5b) and this is how the grafts looked by June. This specific graft bore grapes months after being grafted.