The best thing to do with grafting is take some photos and let me know the process you used, variety etc. In this case pears are pretty forgiving. Some grafts take faster than others. Have some i did 4 weeks ago that have not sprouted and ones like this i did 2 weeks ago that want to explode. Thats a single coating of parafilm. See the bottom bud on the left side is green and just beneath the parafilm. If you see that it is fine. There is no gurantee these grafts will take just because they leaf out or that they failed because they didn’t. The smell you describe is likely callusing forming. Grasshoppers will quickly consume fresh callus wood. For this reason i dont pull grafting tape when grasshoppers are extremely active. My asumption which may be wrong is that callus wood may be higher in sugar content. Maple syrup is made from maple sap. Callus wood is formed when the sap is flowing. Many trees in the woods when the sap is cooked down can make glue or syrup. A black walnut can be tapped for syrup just like a maple. Many trees sap can be used to make sweets in a pinch. Grasshoppers are likely attracted to calories. A rabbit chews apple bark for a reason and that is calories. Woundwood is not callus wood. Trees use different cells in different situations. I’m not sure the specifics of the carbohydrate contents in the different types of cells Diagnostics: Assessing Callus And Woundwood In Plant Health Care
I think you’re right about the smell, it did smell like lumber.
I know what you mean about leafing out. I’ve stuck pruned off branches into the ground and they can sometimes leaf out even without roots. So just leafing out doesn’t guarantee anything, but if it then grew few inches, I would be encouraged.
I’ve gone back to my original apple/pear grafting method of 40 years ago: no parafilm or anything else on scion except a dab of something to seal the tip. No reduction in success.
Pears are not picky usually we treat pears nowadays like we are grafting apricots! The only reason i go to as much trouble as i do is to make sure i get near 100% take rate. We dont need that good of rates. It is likely we are only gaining a 5-15% margin of succesful grafts even in a place like Kansas where the wind can be constant. Parafilm is really expensive right now if we can even find it.
The cool weather this year is nice though our rainfall has been limited. The wind has been excessive which requires some extra thought in field grafting. Grafting in Kansas is a little different than what many people might think. Yesterday i planned to graft a ts hardy pear tree. When i looked for the scion wood it was gone from my grafting tool bucket. It was in a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Wind speeds were at least 40 mph. That is not unusual this year it has been windy most of the time and calm once in awhile. My hat was ripped off my head an unknown number of times during gusts.
Is this BET rootstock? I got it from fruit woods and confirmed it with the owner. But however every time I look it, it doesn’t look like a pear tree to me.
Someone will ask what happened to the baby pear last year i grafted with the dog leg in the trunk. It is a 6 1/2 -7 foot baby now. It will fruit in a year or two i can imagine. This is after it was hard pruned this winter.
Pruned it back to a central leader and removed the other side of the cleft. Shaped it up which will allow it to grow really good this year. We just have not had any rain.
It’s been windy here in northern Kentucky as well these past few years. I don’t ever remember it being this consistently windy. I thought my hunting blind was going to launch my dad and I while turkey hunting this evening.
What do you do when you graft to big rootstock when you get fast growth, keep cutting it back or stake them somehow? I had some grafts taken out last year with a sudden 75 mph gust. The winds came and were finished in less than 5 minutes. Another grew 4 feet last year and decided to flop over this Spring.
