We are starting a small orchard in zone 6B. I preformed first bench grafting twords the end of March. 100% success rate on self harvested apple scions in mid February on 14 M111 roots stocks from fedco. 60% success peach on 11 various root sucker rootstocks. Currently have 28 fruit trees growing, in the mother or hard apples, appricots, pears, peaches, plums and cherry. Looking to expand into approximately 3 acre production orchard.
I’ve studied grafting, grafts successfully performed so far, whip and tongue, cleft, modified cleft, back and chip/bud.
You might consider adding some persimmons. They bloom later… should never lose to late frost… they require little maintenance or sprays…the fruit is delicious. There are several nice american varieties that are very cold hardy.
Thanks everyone for the replies The orchard is in its beginning stages. When we bought the farm it had only 6 fruit trees 3 apples and 2 pears and 1 peach. The apple trees were in horrible shape basically start over. The peach snapped and is laying on the ground but still producing. I’ve identified the peach as a contender. The apples were granny smith, red and golden delicious. The pears are bartlet and another one I have yet to identify. All trees were originally planted in the 70’s and all came from stark bros. The Bartlet pear is mature and huge, the other unknown pear tree is more like a semi dwarf. Both pear trees are loaded with pears . My picking basket goes only so high so I’ll most likely have to use my neighbors manlift on the tractor to harvest.
I’ve added many trees to this orchard and have my first grafts potted in kiddie pools, easy to water / easy to drain. I quickly came to the realization that if I want an orchard I need to learn to graft.
Here’s some pics of my first grafting attempts in March this year.
Bark grafted peach and also chip/bud graft still in parafilm.
Hey Jesus,
Welcome to this really fun international forum. You’ll find all kinds of wonderful people contributing here with a wide range of backgrounds and outlooks.
If your peach rootstocks that didn’t accept the grafts are still alive you might try bud grafting on them in early summer. Peaches seem to be easier to graft when it’s warm than when it’s cold.
p.s. You don’t need a signature line in your posts since your user name is automatically attached to each one and for the sake of tidiness in ongoing discussions signature lines are discouraged.
You can quote by highlighting a passage. Once highlighted (or selected) the options are there. Click quote and the original poster’s quote will appear highlighted and w their handle icon.
It will all be in a new post window for you above your next text. Like this.
I’ve found that when I quote a post in a reply, the quote is sometimes automatically removed by the platform software if the post being quoted is directly above, but it works well if the post being quoted is further up the thread. I guess this is just a method the software uses to keep things less cluttery.
Actually Johanns, the quote is removed if you quote the whole post. If you quote part of the post, then the platform software won’t remove it. See I quoted you from directly above in this post.
Jesus, welcome to the forum! Just to be clear quoting is OK, just use the quote function to quote different points of a post you want to respond to. I’m not sure where you read that members can’t quote. I suppose if members were always quoting the whole text of a previous post, then that would cause a lot of extra unnecessary scrolling in the thread (which is probably why the software doesn’t allow it) but other than that, quoting is perfectly fine.
Congratulations on your first grafts. And, yes, grafting is amazing. Every time I see one of my grafts take, my hands tingle like they have magic powers. Or maybe it’s the carpal tunnel.
I’m most impressed by your peach grafts, in March. I’ve been struggling for years, in zone 8b, to graft a local mystery plum. The stone-fruit-grafting wisdom is that stone fruits are so vulnerable to fungus disease that they should not be touched with clippers until July.
But you succeeded in March. Did you keep them sheltered inside?
I’m in zone 6B, I don’t think I did anything special. But then again it was my very first time grafting. I grafted them along with apples, actually the evening before.
I dug the root suckers in early March and trimmed the roots so I could pot them. They were kept inside heated area about two weeks. Until they showed bud breaks, that’s when I grafted them with self harvested scionwood on a a very cold day in mid February.
I stored the scionwood in mylar (green plastic) bags in the refrigerator crisper drawer. For peaches I only grafted the red part of the stem, if it had blotched red patches I disregarded the entire scion because I read it’s not healthy. I also read that one year old healthy peach wood is red during the winter, that’s what you want to graft.
I also completely wrapped the peach scion in parafilm all the way to the tip bud when I grafted them to help with dehydration. I covered the chip bud with just a single wrap of parafilm. I kept the peach root stocks in the heated area and well watered until buds broke on the scion or chip about 3 weeks later.
I get new glasses next month (long overdue), so I should do better next time
. My picking basket goes only so high so I’ll most likely have to use my neighbors manlift on the tractor to harvest.
