This weekend/early next week is trending warmer again. Sunny and 70 Monday and several days that look to be mid 60s or better with sun. We might get a good window.
Yes it is looking up a bit ā¦ hard to say for sure yet though.
I never had any luck colder like that, but my guess is there was sun during the day. 40 plus sun is 60F on the grafts which is ideal. Unlike peaches apples still do callus at temps outside of their ideal range, just more slowly.
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Did you have good luck with persimmons with leaves that small? I havenāt had very good luck with persimmons lately, not sure why but I tried all different stages. It may mostly be the stock, some virginiana seedlings appear very reluctant to accept kaki scions.
Oh my plum graft above is starting to move a little bit now. I lowered some of the temps I had on the plums and cherries in my list above, I think they were a bit higher than needed.
Does kaki on kaki have better success than kaki on virginiana? I have trouble even with that.
I agree that with colder temps took quite a bit longer before I could tell if the graft was successful. But, the percentages ended up as good for me.
Might not work with a lot of fruits, but with apples it has.
(Iāve always tried to āget educatedā a bit before doing sometingā¦and this website is useful in that way for sure even if one must still experiment if thereās not complete consensusā¦but experimentation is
one way to know what works.)
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I did get lucky with persimmons and jujubes last year.
I did 2 grafts of persimmons on a rootstock in ground (2nd year in ground so itās established) and both grafts took.
I did 2 grafts on one rootstock in a pot, both took. One graft in 2nd pot, it took. The 6th graft on the 3rd pot did not take but I blamed that rootstock.
When I grafted persimmons, the weather is warmer because itās in early to mid May. The leaves may be an inch long by then.
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For apples here in 7B for 40 years I always figure last week of March for whip and tongue, cleft and first week of April for bark grafts when bark is slipping.
This year I think bark is slipping already- checked yesterday. False alarm, bark not sliping yet. Timing may move up as climate warms.
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Every time we have a warm March, as soon as April hits, now it decides to be below normal temperatures. 
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At least it is not below freezing this year 
True. Iām thinking it may actually be possible that my last freeze was March 9. Which is by far the earliest.
That is precisely what the Old Farmerās Almanac saidā¦Warm Jan and Febā¦chilly April. (OK, they said normal March, and they missed that a bit).
Had a little sleet around 6 a.m. for an April 1 surprise this morning.
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Weather service is predicting an overnight low of 16 F here tonight ā¦
Iām glad everything is still dormant.
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Donāt despair. Apples have a very wide range breaking dormancy. I have some gala that are approaching tight cluster and some romes showing no green at all
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So glad to hear this. Did field grafting of apples this weekend (here in the Finger Lakes our trees are still mostly in tight clusters). Temperatures reached into the 70s (Ā°F), but tonight a freeze is predicted, and there may be several more chilly nights this week.
Actually, grafting to in-ground roots should yield even a higher take percentage than benchgrafts.
Good luck!
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Between bench grafting and field grafting, I did at least two of every variety, so Iāll be happy if I get more than 50% success rate (except, of course, two of one variety wonāt make up zero of another. Among the varieties included in this yearās orchard expansion were some we sampled and liked at a walking tour of the GRIN/Cornell orchard in Geneva:
Loyalist
Kestrel
Paraquet
Reinette Tres Tardive (the apples were ripe in September, not very late at all)
Bella de Jardins
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Sounds like a orchard tour Iād like to take!
Anyhoww, good luck. I know nothing of any of those varieties. Iām still waiting for a first apple from scions onto G202 I got from GRIN in 2017ā¦no blooms this year.
What was great was after the official tour was over, we were allowed to walk all over the orchard unsupervised with no stated time limit. My wife and I were the last to leave. Walking tours have usually been in mid-September. Donāt know if it will happen again this year or not.
We had no knowledge of any of those varieties before we tasted them, either. There were plenty we rejected.
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