Grafting non dormant wood

General Fruit Growing
#8

I have tried this myself to. Also in july/august.

I wrapped the whole scion in parafilm. And painted it white. And another one loosly wrapped with alluminium foil. Did both bark and normal W&T grafts.

I paid extra attention to the small bud development of the 0 year old shoots i used. I only used the bottom of the shoot and not the top. (did it with apples and asian pears)

It did sprout new leaves for me. But no new shoot growth in the year of grafting.
I think if i had a longer growing season. Or completly headed the tree it might have grown more in year of grafting.

I have my doubts it will save you a whole year though. The growth of a tree grafted like this in august vs in the winter before, will lagg behind in my mind. I think it might give you an extra half a season of growth. Might be enough to put you over the edge to get fruits earlier. Might not.

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#9

I did it a few years ago with some apple rootstock where the initial graft failed to take. I had initially grafted 2-3 year old growth. I placed the second attempts in shade under a grape vine and they finally showed signs of growth in July. I think I re-grafted in June. I think if you keep fighting with the grafts they will take. i.e., new growth, bud graft, cleft graft, bark graft. It is a way to save a year if you have access to the fresh material you want to graft

#10

I bud citrus trees every year in the fall Sept 15-first frost using current bud wood here in Texas near Houston. Best time to bud. The buds stay dormant thru the winter and then in the spring the buds are 3-4 weeks ahead of spring buds. Usually it is 90F+. I believe most commercial growers of citrus do the same. If any buds don’t take then spring re-budding for them. Persimmons only in the spring.

#11

Thank you for mentioning this. I will plan to keep a bud from my scion wood to re- graft any that don’t take. Hopefully I don’t have to worry about it for too many trees.

#12

I successfully did a pear clef graft July 7th with freshly cut scion.
I did a peach graft last year early Oct using a freshly cut 12 inch branch. I won’t know until the spring if it worked.

#13

@oscar @Masbustelo

I found a few more of his videos. In the english subtiles you see he gives pretty detailed explanations of what/why he is doing.
His utube ID is Земляк if you want to find more of him.

By the way, in the subtitles “grafting” is translated into "vaccination"

In the first:
On June 5, 2019 he grafts a fully leafed 1/2 inch thick scion which is obviously a 2nd or 3rd year growth into the trunk bark of an old gnarly apple tree. By July 26, 2019 (51 days) he has 45 centimeters (17 inches) of growth.

In the second:
On June 15, 2020 he grafts a fully leafed apricot scion and by June 30 ( 2 weeks!!) he has established very good growth.

In the third: Its a plum in August

in the fourth
It is a Appricot and peach multigraft.

I am NOT putting this up to throw any shade on anyone else or on other methods and practices of doing this. I am doing this is because these turned my grafting knowledge universe" topsy turvy and now maybe I, and others, can be less nervous about grafting:

NOTE:

  1. All of these are done with actively growing current year’s scion wood.
  2. His methods are definitely not as “surgical” as our practices. He does not have a super sharp, single bevel, Swiss/German/Japanese surgical steel blade.(see the video). I think he borrowed one of his knives from Conan the Barbarian.
  3. He grafts onto any area of the tree where he can find cambium to cambium contact.

Notice the huge amount of new growth he gets in 2-6 weeks? I always thought that bud or “T” grafts were ‘forget it til next year and hope you did it right’.

Some of the subtitle translations go by pretty quickly but at the end of the video I posted in my original post, he points to a piece of plywood and says he put it on the “north, to keep the graft warm”.

MY TAKEAWAY: If apples form fruiting buds on 2 year old wood, you just got one year old wood in one month and if peaches, plums and apricots do it on last years wood, you graft today and have fruit next year; neat! Oh, and the mysterious is a little less mysterious.

Hope this helps in stress reduction

Mike

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Have I doomed this graft by painting over buds?
#14

@MES111 Mike What do you think that clay or putty is that he uses?

#15

@Masbustelo

It is translated as “plastique”. If you look at the vid in the original post, when he applies it, a word in Russian is flashed on the screen as well as the english word “plastique”.

I assume it is some sort of sealant. We have those too including bee’s wax, or any other grafting wax

Mike

1 Like
#16

You can buy Summer bud wood from Fruitwood Nursery. I successfully grafted peach and plum during the 3rd week of August. I used T bud, and V grafts. I left some leaves growing below the graft until it went dormant. The buds produces 1-2 pairs of 1/2" leaves, but did not branch out until Spring.

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#17

Last June was my first t-bud/chip bud attempt on a few stone fruits. After 3-4 weeks, I tried to force the buds but most didn’t put on any growth. I thought all of them failed. Now, literally all of them are waking up and putting on new growth - even the ones on peach that was budded way down (I hear this doesn’t work for grafts on peaches). Interestingly, I had an extra stick of Black Tartarian last summer and instead of throwing it away, I cleft grafted it to tree. Again, the same experience - it sat there without any sign of life and it looks like it will grow this season.

Grafting/budding in summer is nice but for me, it didn’t save any time compared to grafting in winter. It’s still a good reason to visit @Stan or @Girly in summer in the guise of budwood and sample their fruits :laughing:

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#18

@californicus @nil

Until I saw this guy, the mantra in my head was:

  1. Grafting is only with dormant wood from last year.
  2. Any grafting of scions must be done early in the year “as soon as the sap starts flowing”
  3. Any type of bud grafting is “wait til mext year”.

Each and every one of these got stood on its head, at least in my head.

He had 17 inches of growth in 7 weeks from this year’s scion wood

All I am saying is “when you least expect it, expect it” so keep your mind open because there may be someone out there who did not read the book that started off by saying “it is settled that…”

That’s all I am saying

Mike

9 Likes
#19

A while ago i looked up a lot of “side” grafting. Grafting a scion on the side of a stem, seemed really usful. Like is shown on the 2e video in this topic.

I am worried long term about the crotch angle/ bark inclusion of such a graft though. You could fix the crotch angle on the scion shoot. But fixing the crotch angle of the scion itself seems hard with that grafting technique.

I have tried a few, where i made the cut sideways at an 45 degree angle on the stem. And inserted the scion at that 45 degree angle (instead of straight up). The graft took. But time will tell if it will bark include.

To me it makes perfect sense you can graft with non dormant wood.
virtually all summer T-budding is done with non dormant wood.

For grafting you need enough callusing to fuse the 2 pieces together, and enough sapflow in the rootstock piece to force the callus cells to differentiate, before the scion runs out of resourches (starch/water). All those things happen faster/more in summer.

The main difference between summer and dormant grafting though is the hormonal balance of the tree.
In dormant grafting you graft in the dormant season, and when the tree wakes up it strats producing lots of cytokines, those usualy wake up the graft. In summer those get counteracted by the auxines produced by the rest of the tree and the “clasical” summer grafts thus stay dormant. However if you top the rest of the tree. The hormonal disbalance will likely force the graft to grow and grow fast.

#20

1998, I did a 4-flap ‘banana graft’ of J.Yoder#1 shagbark hickory onto pecan understock in early-mid July; non-dormant scion onto non-dormant rootstock. Not something I generally do, but it was my first chance at budwood from that cultivar.
Removed all leaves from the scion, wrapped w/Parafilm, and, IIRC, shaded w/ aluminum foil.

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#21

I am wondering how well these late grafted, late leaf out branches handle zone5 winter typically down to -20F

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#22

Exactly,
Late season growth , I would assume, may not properly harden off before winter.
Could be susceptible to winter kill ?
Also , seems the rootstock would be weakened , by removing so much foliage Midsummer.

#23

@IL847 @Hillbillyhort

I am in zone 5 b in NY.

I summer prune my Espaliers through August. Often there is continued new growth in Sept (sometimes alot!) . When the amount of sunshine declines the growth stops and the new growth has plenty of time to go dormant and harden off in October and November and into December in plenty of time for the rigors of January and February.

A June 5 graft produced 17 inches of growth by July 26. By August 30th it probably doubled. I think it hardens off like any other non-grafted growth that grows during that time.

Take a look at the August 30th growth on the pear graft that was done on August 1 at the very end of the video where he points to the plywood he added to the north side to “keep it warm” Growth like that will harden of by December

Mike

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#24

going to try this on my mountain ash with a pear scion next summer. going to try it mid june and see what happens. nothing gained , nothing lost.

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#25

Well, Mike some part if Russia is quite warm zone 6~7. Don’t know which region in Russia the video was made.

#26

@IL847

I understand and, of course, I did not mean to imply that this is something that was going to work across the board for everyone everywhere. But, the August 30 growth is similar to the growth I get on my pears in August September after I prune my pears and these survive. Actually, it’s annoying because I prune to develop fruiting buds and these types often indicate vegetative. Also he is talking about keeping his graft “warm” in August so it pretty much indicates that he is not in the warmest zones.

But regardless, the motivation for this thread was the “wow, my ideas about grafting may not be so sacrosanct” pinballing inside my head and I thought I’d share.

The idea that I could top work some trees in
July was very attractive to me as I try to explore the woods for old abandoned orchards to maybe find something interesting but now I can save stuff I find in summer.

MIke

6 Likes
#27

If it is mainly about “saving” scion varieties you collect in summer, you can also summer T-Bud or Chip bud. You cut of the leaf of the chip. but leave the leaf stalk. Wrap around the leaf stalk.

If the graft heals and “takes” the hormones and sapflow from the rootstock will eject the leaf stalk (it will fall off if you slightly touch it)

This is really useful. Since you can see if the grafts took. Even though they will likely not leaf out that summer. But next spring

The grafting in the video i think has some risks to it. Since pruning the tree to a stump in the summer, will probably weaken it greatly. Likely more so than pruning it to a stump in the winter. Since the tree has not prepared for dormancy yet mid summer. (has not stored carbohydrates in the roots and buds as much as it would at the begining off winter.