Inosculation on cherry trees

Has anyone tried?
I Have 2 perfect candidates… but am afraid that either i get a super cherry tree or kill them both :slight_smile:

1 Like

I am not sure what you’re trying to do. Are you wanting to graft one tree into another or put the branches in close contact and hope the branches will fuse by Inosculation?

In any case I think you will get more replies if the post is moved to General Fruit Growing. I went ahead and moved it to the General Fruit Growing category. Hopefully this will help you get more replies.

1 Like

I had to look up what that means. Apparently it would mean intergrafting limbs on the tree. Perhaps to form an unusual shape??

If I’m right I don’t think you’d kill the tree. If the grafts fail, you’d prune as needed and start over.

Maybe you should explain your methods and what you hope to achieve.

7 Likes

I was actually just thinking of doing this yesterday with two Cherry trees I have growing against my fence. One of the trees put on about 5 feet of new growth on a branch I’m going to tie down and train to a bi-cordon UFO style espalier. Both of these trees side by side along the fence almost have their main opposing cordon tips touching. I just bent the newest growth down and the tips aren’t quite touching yet, but they are very close.

I thought they would be long enough to attempt an approach graft on both of these main cordon leaders. I just thought it would be kind of cool to attempt. The tree on the right is a sweetheart Cherry, and the tree on on the left is a Stella Cherry. Both were just planted in the ground this winter. The Sweetheart tree got off to an early start and produced cherries this spring. The Stella to the left wasn’t quite, as precocious, (but another Stella I planted this winter did produce cherries this spring).

I just thought it might be a neat thing to attempt grafting both arms together, and also might reduce the need for sturdy trellising.

Good idea? bad idea? Yes? No? Maybe so?

I hope I’m not derailing what the OP was intending for this thread. I kind of figured he was asking about the same kind of thing, so why not piggyback on this subject as well.

Has anyone used “approach” grafts in the past with success? How do you normally secure together any approach grafts you’ve done in the past? I’m sure many would suggest using other types of grafts rather than an approach graft, but I’m just rather curious to attempt this different type of graft.

3 Likes

@tbg9b Would you mind please sharing how each of these varieties taste compared to one another? I am trying to decide on a cherry variety to buy and both of these are options.