Is parafilm the new miracle cure for grafting?

[murky]

There’s a guy in Oregon who went by Plumfan or Plumfun on Gardenweb who does successful whip and tongue grafting with current season scion wood. Next time I bump into him I’ll suggest he check this forum out if he hasn’t already.

[Auburn]

Update on summer w/t and side graft with current season scion wood.

Pic 001

[Appleseed70]

Wow…very interesting. I was wondering about this just the other day. Do you strip the leaves from the scion wood fist before grafting?
Looks really good Bill…nice photo and some nice hunker pears too! What variety are the pears?

[Auburn]

Do you strip the leaves from the scion wood fist before grafting?

*I cut the leaf off near the bud with scissors. *The pear looks like it is going to be very large. It was some scion wood given to me a few years ago so I’m not certain of the variety but I’m almost sure that it is Moonglow. Bill

[AJfromElmiraNY]

Let me know how yours work out.

Due to time constraints, I only did five. I noticed today that all but one is growing new leaves. The callouses looked OK. Next time I would put a bag on the whole thing. It looked like the parafilm shrank and dried out faster than usual. It cracked around some of the buds that didn’t grow. They probably dried out before the grafts took. I forgot the sun is more intense this time of year.

[Appleseed70]

Looks super nice Bill, I like the fatness (is that a word?) of it, nice blush too.

[Auburn]

(is that a word?)

Sure. Where I come from if we don’t know the correct word we just make up one. Bill

[AJfromElmiraNY]

Here is good example. I collected a scion of unknown apple while on trip last September. I grafted it to a seedling as soon as I got home. I kept it outside in the shade for about month before I brought it in for overwintering in an unheated garage. This spring it leafed out. The advantage here, I was able to use skinny graft wood that would have been difficult to bud with. You can see I used a cleft graft.

[speedster1]

Wow, that’s impressive. A cleft graft in september. Thumbs up!

[BobVance]

Wow, that’s impressive. A cleft graft in september.

I did some apple cleft grafts last August, in addition to the chip grafts. I figured that if I have success with clefts in the spring (and never have much success with budding), that I should try them in the late summer too…

Results are in:
Chip buds: 1 in 12 made it (a couple more appear to have callused over nicely, but the bud looks dead)
Cleft grafts: 4 in 6 took, but only 3 are alive now (I broke one with my head…)

Now, this isn’t to say that clefts are better than chip buds during the summer. That would contradict everything I’ve seen online. But, if you are completely incompetent at budding, cleft grafts are a reasonable possibility. I should also mention that none are growing particularly vigorously. I think some of my spring grafts may have passed them, so it may be most useful for when you have the summer wood and don’t think you’ll have access to it the next spring for whatever reason (cut or dying tree, moving, etc).

Here are a couple pics. Note the parafilm which is still visible on the 2nd. I removed most of it this spring when I was taking stock of how things did and removing the green tape that held them together. You can see a few somewhat failed chips in the pics as well. I experimented with longer chips this time (in hopes of more cambium contact), but had the same dismal results as when I used smaller ones.

Clefts from 8/16/2015:
Freyburg:

Lobo:

[speedster1]

So let me make sure I understand this. In the fall or late summer instead of t-budding or chip budding you are using growing leafed-out wood to cleft graft? The same wood you would normally use for t-budding?

[AJfromElmiraNY]

you are using growing leafed-out wood to cleft graft

Not sure if you are addressing this to Bob, but that is what I did. I removed the leaves as indicated earlier in the thread.

[Auburn]

Auburn, I don’t think you’ve said what cultivars of apple you put onto what cultivar or pear. I’d think graft compatibility a bigger obstacle to success than the type of grafting technique.

@murky. I’m pretty sure I never answered your question. After six years my longest pear apple graft is between a Mollie apple and Moonglow pear. It appears to still be healthy but the junction was and currently is larger than either of the two. The combination of Winter Banana and several other pears seem to be doing well (Ayers, Moonglow, Orient). This remains an enjoyable pursuit and a interesting conversation piece. Bill

[murky]

Thanks Auburn. I should see if I have any Ayers scion left to put on the Winter Banana.

[BobVance]

So let me make sure I understand this. In the fall or late summer instead of t-budding or chip budding you are using growing leafed-out wood to cleft graft? The same wood you would normally use for t-buddi

Yup. Someone from the forum had extra budwood from ARS and was kind enough to send it to me. All the leaves were cut off, but it definitely wasn’t dormant wood. I didn’t try to use big scions for the cleft grafts- just one bud, so from that perspective it wasn’t that different from budding. Just a much better take rate for me.

I went back and found a couple pics from when I did it.

Chip:

Cleft:

[speedster1]

Thats awesome. Learn something new every day. I guess ultimately they are accomplishing the exact same thing. This gives me some hope that I can add some varieties over the summer if I want to. I’ve had zero success with T-Buds and Chip buds. I’m not really sure why that is.

[Auburn]

This gives me some hope that I can add some varieties over the summer if I want to

Keep at it and you will figure it out. I’m going to add a few Korean Giant cleft grafts this morning from this year scion wood.

[hambone]

Same here, about zero for 20 over the years on summer budding apples and persimmon.

[BobVance]

about zero for 20

Wow- I should feel good about my 1 for 12 on apples

And it goes up to 2 for 20, if you include the peach and plum grafts. I think it could have been even higher if two of the peach buds didn’t winter-kill, possibly when we went down to -10F.

But, there is actually a bit more time during the summer to do this, so it’s worth trying more to get it right. After all, it works so well for some, like Fruitnut.

[AJfromElmiraNY]

Last August I got to save a tree by bark grafting new growth.

This tree (not mine) was a type of gala on G41. The support post was solid but the cordage was insufficient for its fruit load. It broke loose in a thunderstorm and snapped along the graft. The following day I went over to perform emergency surgery. I took new growth from the tree top and trimmed it back to a couple good buds that looked fully developed. Luckily the tree was well watered (had summer drought) so the bark on the G41 slipped well. Unfortunately, the photos from that visit were all blurry. Recently I went back to check on its progress, get photos, and trim anything that needed to be removed. It put on about 30" of new growth before going dormant for the winter. I’m happy with the results. Best part, people were astonished that it was even possible.