My Candy Heart is starting to bloom, while Nadia is a month away from blooming.
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Please explain why you must graft low? Are you talking about grafting low for flavor or some other attribute?
I graft as low as possible if I’m wanting to change variety of the tree. If you want a multigrafted tree then the grafts will probably be higher. My trees are only 6-7ft tall so it’s best if they start low.
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When I first started grafting, i grafted high as I didn’t want to cut too much off, and have a bad branch if graft failed. Which was a very good thing because they did! Now that I have more confidence and experience, a little anyway, I’m not really worried about that. At least with a graft that is in the wrong location if it takes, well then you can move it. I’m doing that for two grafts I did last year that I’m not happy with location. I took scion off the first year grafts to try a better spot.
Ok, I was reading into it too deep. I’m usually sitting on the ground and graft at about 1 foot. When I’m comfortable I do better work.
If I want to form bigger branches of added cultivar on my multi-grafted tree, I usually graft lower and the tree tries to replace the size of branch that it lost to cutting and your graft would tend to grow to that size quickly too. If I want just add a specimen sample fruits I graft near the terminal sprouts, and the added cultivars remain small but are bearing few fruits of normal size. So basically you have some control on the size of the added cultivars by selecting where to graft.
One of the techniques of balancing the tree for me is instead of pruning I do the regrafting. Sometimes, in a multi-grafted tree, some added cultivars would want to take over while the others would remain small. So what I do, I regraft the more vigorous ones to the lethargic ones and lethargic cultivars I regraft over the vigorous ones. Somehow, after two seasons of regarfting, the tree balance is achieved and their growth almost the same.
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Yes grafting is a heck of a lot of fun. This year I’m going to take a seedling that is 2nd leaf and start it out as a multi-grafted tree. Mostly because I need the seedling I have so much different scion this year. I’m running out of room! Anyway it will be a fun experiment. I also will try budding on them too, I have three seedlings to work with…That will be later in the year. Just to practice budding. I will do some on figs too.
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Here is a typical multi graft of mine
. Very low is a graft I will likely cut off unless my upper grafts fail. The low graft is sort of an insurance policy and will leave me with a single variety tree. It’s a tree I’ll give to a friend before I know the success of the grafts.
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What pollen will you use with it this year for upcoming breeding projects?
I would like us to all keep our trees going to evaluate fruit on ripe mature trees. We really
don’t know what this tree will produce yet?
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Wait. It certainly produces a lot of discussion, LOL.
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Food for thought!
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This is my Nadia today.Being in a greenhouse may have helped a little,but the temps have mostly been cool and there is 50% shade cloth on the South side right now.
Monday was a warm day,about 70F and the tree woke up. Brady
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Brady,
Do you have any other plums or pluots to pollinate it?
Tony
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Yes,there are some Pluots and Plums. An Emerald Beaut can be seen in the photo on the upper left.
I have been hand pollinating lately with a Q-tip.
There was a Bumblebee in there today,the first I’ve seen.I’m going to try and bring some Mason bees in this week and see what they can do. Brady
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Burgundy plum.
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I’m in zone 5 and having great luck with plucots. My Dapple Dandy is very vigorous.
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