Grafting question yep

I have a general grafting question. My question is grafting a tree do you have to keep it in the same family ,like
pear cutting on pear tree, or could you do a peach cutting on a pear tree. thanks

You have to keep it in the same family ,you cant graft peach onto pear rootstock or cherry on apple.

This is my playlist about grafting maybe you can see something interesting for you about grafting :smile: .

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL48rTT9_7ctAfwDFDehzzE66HUppg0G5W

As a general rule the more closely things are related the more likely they are to graft successfully. For example, many fruit are members of the rose family, but they are scarcely all interchangeable. The stone fruit (including almonds) can often be grafted among one another, and “fruit salad” trees take advantage of this to combine varieties. Here’s a chart that will clarify some of that:

http://www.fowlernurseries.com/Rootstocks.htm#Almond

A lot of us play with frankentrees, where we’ll graft a dozen or so varieties of apple to one tree, have another tree for pears (I think I have about a dozen pear varieties on one tree now); some people are having considerable success with some inter-specific grafts-I think @auburn does some neat things with pears and apples, and @JoeReal does lots of interesting work.

One potential booby trap: a graft can take and look good for a few years and then fail, so you can lose time that way.

Good luck and have fun!

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I’ll be just as excited to graft another! I have changed my perspective in growing my fruit trees. If I prune trees yearly, why not use grafting as a way to control trees and achieve balance. Then learn many things from various grafting combo and styles. I do this because I am not into commercial production, only for personal satisfaction.

Some of my single grafted peach trees don’t last long and I replace them in the same way I would gladly replace grafted cultivars that fail later. Simply try another combo.

So many fruits to try grafting, so little time!

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Grafting from easiest to hardest
Same plant to itself
Different cultivar of the same species
Different species in same genus
Different Genus
It gets impossible between different families for now.

The trick to grafting between incompatible species is to use an interstem that is compatible to both. For example, Sweet Cherry cannot be grafted directly to Japanese plum but you can use Adara as an interstem that would allow you to convert a cherry orchard into a plum orchard or vice versa.

You may need to use a series of interstems, sometimes, I use 4 kinds of interstems in series over a period of couple of years to graft incompatible species together.

You can graft apples, asian pears and european pears together by grafting them on different branches of a quince simply because most quinces are used as rootstocks to all of these. Then you have three different Genera as well.

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I’d like to add a question here,if it’s okay.?
A number of the scions have a light brown center pith area.Should these be discarded and not be considered for grafting?Thanks,Brady

Tony, I had a few of those this year and I used them. My source is very tuned into his stuff and would not have sent it if he didn’t trust it. But if I’m wrong tell me now and I’ll get them off of there!

Just wanted to say welcome to the site and fruit growing- though is another thread for you to introduce yourself and be welcomed. I wanted you to know that I was asking questions just like yours (can I graft an apple to a peach tree, etc) just a few years ago when I had 5 trees. I now have about 125 trees and while I’m no where near the level of a lot of people on here, I’ve sure come a long way and so will you. So please don’t get discouraged in the beginning. It all starts to sound so compliated and confusing and you’ll feel like you’ll never learn even part of what you need to know, so sometimes its easy to want to give up. DON’T. A lot things you’ll read and see here may seem overwhelming but in truth, as a small hobby grower you just won’t need a lot of the information right now. Of course you’ll eventually want to educate yourself and learn all you can, but don’t feel like you need to do that too soon. Right now you just need to learn basic pruning, develop a spray program (Scott has a great one laid out here), and the rest will come. Grafting is very fun and helpful but not absolutely critical as a beginning fruit grower. Good luck. Most of all- have fun.

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Hi There,
I’d like to second @thecityman/Kevin that please stick around. Don’t get discouraged or overwhelmed. No question is a stupid question. You don’t know, just ask. Someone should be able to answer you.

Welcome aboard.

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Yes. In grafting you ultimately won’t fail. If your graft this year isn’t a success, it will sprout two or more branches to graft again next year, doubling or tripling your chances and will become successful. The more failures you’ll encounter you’ve just more than double your chances of success!

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Last year I grafted a Howard Miracle plum scion onto a Gold Kist Apricot (in a container). Also grafted the same to a Santa Rosa Plum in ground. They both took well, and the one on the apricot was the most vigorous graft I’ve ever had. It grew well over a foot the first year (and bloomed in November???). This year it’s branched and is about two feet long. So that’s one combination that works well.