The cambium contact is my main concern so when I graft that is my focus. Some people carry a block of wood they use to more precisely cut the wood. If you taper that wood down to the thickness of paper it damages the rind of some pear scions. Many people do that and the end has no bark at the tip. Rather than damage the scion I allowed a little thicker tip knowing it wont matter. Once you wrap that scion tightly together the one inch of cambium contact is all that matters. The greater the amount of cambium contact the more likely your chances of graft success.
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Thanks for the explanation.
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Cambium contact is absolutely critical with some species such as Pecan. I made whip and tongue grafts where the cambium in the little Z section of the graft was the only part that formed callus. The result was a graft that took and healed but with strips of dead tissue on each side of the callus. This will heal over in the second year.
I’ve seen pear trees grafted by drilling a hole and inserting a scion with a bit of the bark stripped off exposing the cambium.
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The weather is cool so I see no reason not to use it to my advantage while we have it. This is a BET rootstock and I love these trees! There is very few rootstocks that do better than callery and BET and the hybrids of the two types. Harbin are more difficult for me to work with. Sometimes harbin grow really slow here in Kansas so i really never know what to expect from them. It sounds really bad but it’s my opinion these BET are better to graft after they are considered a little to big. When i started this topic i thought the exact opposite at that the larger trees would be harder to graft. I’ve grafted lots of larger pears and these really were no different. After the first couple I was warmed up. In the future I’m going to wait on some of them until they are 7 or 8 feet or higher to top work them.
20220601_201245|690x920 Uploading: 20220601_201814.jpg…
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Sorry if you’ve explained it elsewhere, but why do you cover the green vinyl tape with Parafilm all the way down? I can guess that maybe the lighter color might be a tiny bit cooler, and obviously it’s working for you, but I’m surprised it makes a significant difference.
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That’s a good question parafilm is a wax tape which is waterproof. The purpose is giving the graft more time to heal. If I was bench grafting I would dip my scion and rootstocks in paraffin wax but for field grafts its the best thing to prevent my grafts from drying out. It doubles the chances of success. Garden tape is much stronger than parafilm and its there to hold the grafts in place while they callus over.
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just whacked a 5in. m. alba and bark grafted 2 scions of illni everbearing on it. was no way to leave a nurse branch because i had to remove a bad crotch angle. think it will make it Clark?
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I understand why you are covering the scion, but I was confused why you seemed to be covering over the green garden tape on the rootstock as well. Or am I misinterpreting this photo, and you are actually using two colors of vinyl garden tape on the rootstock and then the Parafilm on just the scion?
I would be interested in your thoughts comparing Parafilm on the scion versus coating the scion with Doc Farwell’s Heal and Seal. I topworked a dozen mature apples this year, and used the Doc Farwell’s for the first time. It was somewhat messy, but seemed to coat well.
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Doc Farwells is good stuff and it’s an alternative way to do the same thing just like grafting wax or pruning sealer. If you look at this thread you can see I’m familiar with your method. Doc farewells or pruning seal becomes a question of heat. Any oil seeping into the graft before its callused can cause failure between the rootstock and scion. No graft is a guarantee this year so I’m taking the precautions I can. If needed tin foil hats for the grafts can be built if it goes to 100 degrees suddenly.
Top working Pears weather permitting
The thing worth noting is that garden tape does not seal in moisture like pruning seal, doc farewells, or parafilm. You might wonder why I’m not using grafting wax like normal. The reason I can’t use grafting wax this year is due to the weather. The weather has many times got to hot 90+ F all through grafting season that would liquify toilet wax ring or other soft waxes. Kansas early grafting is better but the temperature swings at my location make it extra challenging. I’m going to graft whatever I can this year whenever I can. The trick is trying to match your method with the weather. One method I really admire for cold or hot weather is a trick @Derby42 uses which is using silicone over the top of his grafts. No matter what the temperature cheap silicone applied with a caulking gun on a graft works like a charm. What is more economical than silicone? At the time it was $1 or $2 a tube and the type was the silicone you might use around your shower or to weather proof your house. There are many ways to get the job done!
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Cleaning up an earlier graft i did on callery. Strip all those leaves off the rootstock or the graft will fail. The callery shoots will steal the nutrients away from my graft if allowed to so timing is very important. This may need to be done several times. The reason why I did not graft at ground level is because rabbits don’t like callery here at my location and fireblight won’t kill the roots if it killed the tree. This winter when rabbits are looking for food they will pass on wild pear and eat Elm or something they prefer more. If fireblight was really bad and killed my pear 10 or 15 years down the line I can cut off the scion and graft the stump only losing 2 years until it fruits again.
This type of graft the tape will stretch so if it’s not removed for a year until next season it will not hurt this graft or the tree. The shoot will grow up and the cleft graft is strong. I’m grafting for worse case scenario. The more we graft the better we get and strategy is the name of the game. Know your enemies!
Will a bird landing on the graft hurt it? Unlikely
Will a deer browsing kill my graft? Unlikely
Will a wind storm hurt my graft? Unlikely
Can rabbits girdle my tree? Unlikely
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Time to start pruning and grafting the next row. Wish these trees always grew straight but they don’t do that.
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Wish these trees always grew straight but they don’t do that.
I have one callery on my property with main trunk growing out at a 45 degree angle and a bunch of mature upright suckers growing out of the root. I’m guessing the tree was originally upright, and at some point (maybe after big rain), the tree developed a big lean.
Other wild calleries seedlings seem to be pretty straight and upright.
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Straighten the trees up as best as I can as I go down the rows knowing there are some things I need to live with. There is a dog leg shape to one of them but it should grow out of that.
It was nearly dark when I finished but this gives you an idea what the row looks like. You will need to zoom in its the trees from the photo above grafted over.
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So…my neighbor got 3 Bartlett rootstocks, probably OHF something, growing to about 20’ Nice and disease free. Time to rework them. How essential is it to have a nurse limb? as I see many without…
There’s a south facing, low growing, slightly angled upwards limb, about 8" in diameter I want to cut and place 2 scions. I’m thinking 1 at 10 oclock and the other at 4:30, if you consider the cut face as a watch. Is there enough sap to keep both limbs if I train them away from each other? Such a vigorous branch, thinking about putting a variety to slow it down. Kngiant? Chojuro? Green Jade? Harrow?
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In this case I’m not using nurse branches because these are babies and I’m removing 3/4 of the growth and these are pears. Nothing provokes a pear more than that to grow very fast. If I was leaving most of the pear branches intact and grafting those I would leave a nurse branch. Older pears I would leave a nurse branch they don’t have as much vigor as younger trees. Pears under 7 or 8 years old can be very vigorous. Harrow sweet or Harrow delight would be a great choice.
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Thanks Clark:)
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Many asked about grafting on this thread so I’m going to post photos of some of what we are discussing for sealants and containers they come in. Most you can find on Amazon including things like buddy tape. Garden tape can also be purchased there.
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I use toilet bowl sealer wax. So far so good… and cheap
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Bought about a dozen years ago for $1 each I still have half of them! No idea what toilet they were for I sorted by cheapest on Amazon and loaded up on cheap wax rings several years ago!
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Making progress everyday. Sun comes up early and mornings are nice and cool now so there is no excuse not to be showing some results.
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