Peach graft logging spring 2018

Both, I generally have 90+% takes of anything that is not peach or persimmon. (have not grafted jujube).

Even though it’s only a week ago on apples, pears, pluots, plums cherries, I can see buds pushing. Well, shouldn’t count chicken before they’re hatched, I guess.

I don’t prune early anymore. I will prune in the summer on apples and prune after harvest on all other things.

Here’s a nectarine splice graft from 4/11 which I’m feeling pretty good about.

8 Likes

My early grafts from a similar time are growing really slowly compared to the usual, all the cold weather really slowed them down. I think they will all make it in the end but I’m not 100% sure yet. Some of them are even less far along than your picture.

Some good news though, one of my weak scion - weak stock grafts is going! It took three weeks which is a very long time in peach grafting.

And, one of the bench grafts succumbed to the recent hot weather - it was barely making it and the heat fried it. It looks like only one of those four will make it. In the future along with using strong wood I think the plants should not be transplanted immediately like I did, just keep them in pots for a year.

1 Like

A lot of mine are less far along- this is the best one :slight_smile:

I’ve gotten better result by planting out bench grafts. But, maybe that is just a factor of how bad I am with plants in pots.
Also, I have bench grafted very few peaches- a lot more experience with apples.

I did a few more peach grafts today … its going to be high around 70 for the next week more or less. The peach shoots are maybe 4" on average with much longer ones at pruning cuts. I don’t really need any more peaches but I have plenty of seedlings to play around with.

Here is a picture of one I just did:

I also took some pictures of the 3 or so weeks ago grafts. Here is the one that just got going, weak Red Baron scion on weak stock:

You can see how I twist the parafilm like a cord in this picture, its the big bulge at the graft union.

Here are some top workings on my Shui Mi Tao Honey peach:

I also did an apricot topwork which was going fine, but the stock insists on putting out zillions of little buds and I think it may defeat the scions:

This has been a big problem with some apricot top workings, for Robada it took me three tries before I finally managed to topwork it. If I had done the graft at the base it would have worked fine, but then deer might munch it to death.

3 Likes

So far eight out of 12 grafts (8 cots and 4 nectarines; 10 cleft and 2 bark) are successful. All the ones with quality scions succeeded. I did not completely give up on the remaining four; one of them was with a scion in pretty bad shape, so I may cut it off soon,another was done after sunset with a hand held light (that damn urge to get the job completed!) so I might have not aligned the cambium well and the last two had one or two buds only on the scion. The good news is: I did two grafts of each variety, so my objective has been achieved.

All the grafts were wrapped with parafilm down to about one inch of the stock. On the stock, I used several layers of electric tape on top of the parafilm to give it extra tightness. Now, when should I remove the electric tape? I feel I should leave it for a couple more months or so, but I am afraid if that is too long, it might hinder the growth of the graft/branch. For the parafilm, I think the branch is going to break it apart as it gets thicker, right?

3 Likes

I think you should leave the electric tape as long as possible. If I think a graft is getting restricted I slice the tape with a sharp knife to relieve the pressure and leave the tape on. I have done much worse damage removing it too soon.

2 Likes

Agree with Derby. Your grafts look good. I personally don’t declare success until after a while. This year, I found two of my very small peach grafts that were successful from last year did not make it through the winter.

2 Likes

I checked on my first peach grafts (just 6 grafts) yesterday (see post 45 above for temps) and four are pushing growth, but that doesn’t they took. They could still fail.

None of the plum grafts are pushing growth. It’s been 13 days.

Also did 5 more peach grafts on 4-30-18.

Here are the historical temps (from a close by weather station) for the 5 grafts on 4-30.

Monday (4-30) high - 80
Tuesday low - 61
Tuesday high - 76
Wednesday low - 62
Wednesday high - 82
Thursday low - 60
Thursday high - 76
Friday low - 57
Friday high - 78
Saturday low - 57
Saturday high 85

1 Like

I’m completey new to peach grafting, did about 10 over the weekend to my seedling peach tree of unknown variety. Our temps have been in the mid to upper 80’s and dry…it’s that time of year. this pattern is expected to hold for the rest of the week. Not sure how the grafts will fair in this heat…I wouldn’t typically, but do I need to supplement with some water?




!

2 Likes

Those temps are on the high side if its sunny, also your trees are further along than is optimal. You also have a lot of competition left growing on the tree. So overall the odds honestly don’t look all that great, but I sure hope I am wrong!

I feel my grafts pictured above I may have been too early on, they seriously stalled and it probably helped the apricot fail. All the trunks now are going but the ones with multiple scions have a few dud scions now, it looks like they stalled out. The competition from the other grafts can cause some to stall so its partly from that, but the super long cool period certainly did not help.

Yeah, I was afraid it might be a little too warm, but we’ll see what happens…worst case scenario I try again next year…

I’m starting to get some decent leaf push on the peaches I grafted about 2 weeks ago. I’ve got 4 of the 6 which look about like these two.

Then there are a couple which pushed a little growth but have stalled. Here’s one which pushed a flower a bit, but hasn’t broken through with any foliage.

1 Like

Nice! Your top picture looks like my peach grafts as of yesterday, but they were grafted a month ago and had to limp through a long cool period. Your temperatures were just about perfect, a touch hot a couple days but nothing to cause a big problem.

Some of my past early peach graftings that failed I also recall them starting up OK and then petering out. This year it looks like I squeaked by, three scions seem to have stalled but there are one or two good scions on each of those trunks still.

1 Like

These peach grafts are from 11th of April. I have two seedlings and on the first one I grafted 5. 4 shows green so far.

Close up

On the second seedling I grafted 4 scions. Two are showing clear growth. Another one is about to break bud I think. But can’t be too sure.

Both seedlings were moved about a week before grafting. I tried to take as much soil as I could so they may not have been too shocked. I’m happy with the 80% and 50% success rate. Hope it stays that way or improve.

On my big peach tree I grafted I think 5 scions. Non is showing any sign of life yet. They were done on 21st of April. I’m surprised non took. I don’t think it’s taking time. I think the tree is in pretty bad shape this year maybe it can’t support grafts. I see more and more dead twigs every day. I’m not going to try and graft to it anymore. It probably needs a break.
I’m glad two young plants are in better shape.

2 Likes

When you put aluminum foil on your grafts do you wrap the whole scion or just the grafting joint?

I wrap the whole thing … it is one more layer to help keep the scion from drying out.

In comparing with my temperature gun this spring the aluminum foil didn’t make a lot of temperature difference so I’m not sure how important it is.

I notice a lot of you on this board wrap the full scion with para-film maybe that is why I’m having so many failures. I’ve always just wrapped the grafted juncture and had a good success rate. But I wasn’t in such a windy location.

I have also had many grafts succeed with no wrapping or painting, I didn’t do that for my first few years of grafting. But it does give you a longer window for your graft to take in since it will be viable longer. Overall, I would say its worth the time it takes to bump the odds. Grafting success is all about getting the odds a bit more in your favor in all the dimensions you have control of.

You’ve got that right.