So I grafted a few hundred persimmon this year
This tecumseh from @k8tpayaso is grafted to an older native tree of about a 1.25” caliper.
It has a persimmon on it!!! Grafted it 10 weeks ago
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I have a good story/experience this year that shows just how tough and forgiving apple wood can be.
So last spring I grafted King David to Antonovka. It grew fairly well last summer until in the fall I was going around putting tree guards on all the trees for vole protection. In true clutz fashion I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking and literally kicked the top of the King David right off at the graft union! I proceeded to say a few choice words and went about my work and largely forgot about it, figuring I’d get some fresh wood and try again this year.
Fast forward to spring when I was back in the orchard doing some spring cleaning when I came across the top of the king David I had kicked off. It was just lying on top of the grass where it had spent the winter under the snow and to my surprise it looked pretty ok…I picked it up, dusted it off and scratched the bark a little to take a peak, it was still pretty green! Now I wasn’t quite ready for grafting yet, so I did the only thing a sensible orchardist would do and buried it in the dirt at the base of the rootstock for a few more weeks until I was ready.
I field grafted the scion back onto the same Antonovka rootstock it came off with a simple cleft graft and this is what it looks like today:
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@swincher Nice! So do you use dormant avocado scion, or do they even go dormant? I plan to grow out some seed and maybe find some mexican avocado like joey or del rio to graft to them in 2 years±. To grow in my future citrus greenhouse.
One of my late grafts was this pear:
I had trimmed my Harrow Sweet and Harvest Queen and kept some scion… Well after all the grafting I did this year, in june that lone pear volunteer rootstock came to mind and I said "which pear do I want another copy of! Got to reading reports on here, those 2 sound great! I went with a harrow sweet and threw out the other twiggies oh the pain lol… Hot weather but its still taking. Pear is one thing that takes for me every time. I wish persimmon and nuts was that easy! I want another harvest queen too though after reading positive comments! Thats the thing, rave reviews make guys like us say “hmmm i need another tree…”
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Avocado has a pretty complicated leaf flush cycle, but so far I’ve had best success when the scions are in the part of their cycle where the last flush has paused and the new vegetative buds start to swell, which in many climates happens 2-3 times per year for avocado.
Here’s a chart of the flush/dormancy cycle for avocado from a study done in Spain, I’d say you want scions somewhere around 011, but I don’t have a ton of experience yet trying too many different stages:
I have read that grafting time doesn’t matter as much for avocados as many trees, but that’s when you get highest success rates with all else being equal.
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Thanks for those pointers! I will absorb them more! I am sure this will be helpful if I get to the point of grafting seedlings in a year or 3! I hear mexican thin skin types are tasty plus more chill tolerant so they are on my list after i get my persimmon and citrus etc off the ground. Thanks!
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I’m sure I’ll have scions to share by then! I’ve got ~8 named varieties of Mexican avocado, plus a few dozen seedlings I’m starting.
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Hey thanks That would be nice, I have started planting some seed so its a work in progress. I would be happy to trade or share from my list too, on my profile its getting to be a huge list if I can stay on top of it and get them all grown out! There are so many things to grow!! I used to grow seedlings back in my teens, had some fun with some getting nice sized in 3 gal pots. I just gotta repeat that and I’ll have rootstock
Do you like the mexican flavor?
Take care!
Note to self: next year, remember to keep hardware cloth cages around new grafts to protect them from the neighborhood rabbits. (I think they’ve got a decent chance to bounce back, but still…)
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I’ve only tasted two, and they were very different but both good: Mexicola (from a Latino market, tasted very creamy and rich) and @Marta’s Royal-Wright (she shared a very early dropped fruit from a late winter wind storm, it tasted almost more like a West Indies type, not bad at all though). I don’t think there is any one flavor for the Mexican subspecies since it’s got significantly more genetic diversity than the Guatemalan or West Indies types. Marta reviews a few different ones here:
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Wow thats interesting!! Thanks for sharing!!
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Good job! it’s always worth a try, I’ve found, if you can still find some green cambium. Most of my grafting attempts actually fall into the same category of rescue attempts. Low odds, but it can be fascinating , and also gives you a few tricks to try when all else looks grim. This year my potted rootstocks in storage all got girdled by rodents (a long story). I decided to just handle them as if I was air layering, and I only lost one (the one with the promising Almond graft, naturally)
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Persimmon Grafts Here is one grafted last year that has fruit on it.
Prok
The leader in growth so far this year.
6-5-21
6-11-21
Gave those sap sucking psyllas a shot of seven after the pics !
6-20-21
It’s thinking about blooming.
First try at the drill method, NG/Thor on lg native male (my wife didn’t (let)want me to cut down). Grafted on 6-5-21
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This is my first time hearing about Thor x NG. What’s that one like?
Don’t know yet, one of Don Comptons creations. Pictures of the fruit looked acorn like, something like Geneva Long. Has male and female flowers. I started one last year but only got male flowers so far this year. When it fruits I’ll be glad to report.
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Sounds like a good candidate for breeding. I’ll definitely be following your progress. Most fruiting persimmon varieties don’t produce male flowers. I’m actually struggling to grow a tree that can pollinate some of my pollination variant trees.
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Update to message 499 above from me @Franp and @Rosdonald :
I cut the scion in half that had the stalled top growth. The cut scion had one bud remaining… After a few weeks that one remaining bud is growing.
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Chocolate persimmon produces mostly male flowers.
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