What’s the best graft type for same-size scion and understock on peach?
I have a grafting tool that makes Omega cuts, but I find they fit loosely and probably don’t give good, tight contact. They worked OK on apple for me but not anything else.
Yet I can’t cut a decent W & T to save my life. I’ve had success doing cleft grafts on apple and pear when the scion is the same size, (not pretty but they do take), but I have read suggestions that peach doesn’t do well with those.
Where did you read that?
I did cleft graft to almost all my peaches. They have had a good take rate. The type of grafts is only one of the factors.
Here. I can’t find the thread, now.
For me, the younger wood is better. Green wood is the easiest to bud. Brown wood grafts OK, as long is the bark is smooth. I’ve had the most difficult time grafting wood old enough to have rough bark.
I don’t like grafting big wood (as bleedingdirt did). Not only are they harder to graft (congrats on the success bleedingdirt) but they take forever to completely heal, and the risk of blowout is much greater and lasts longer.
Full disclosure. That’s one successful take on 6 graft points between two scaffold branches. One scaffold was dying and that didn’t help.
So here’s a thought.
When you bark graft, you are making a flat cut (angled or not is irrelevant to this question/concern). Your exposed cambium on the scionwood is a flat cut. Yet the stock is round, not flat. That roundness is more prominent on a smaller-sized stock. How do you get cambium contact? The place where the scion touches may be in the middle of the scion, right between the cambiums.
Imagine trying to lie a butterknife flat against a piece of PVC pipe. That’s how this works in my head.
It’s like being a little chubby and squeezing into your pants still. Hope this helps butterknife guy.
Dax
Hey all, had a question … so when doing a bark graft like this:
He is just putting the scionwood underneath the bark strip…
How does the scionwood connect its cambium layer to the rootstock cambium layer?
like to me a ‘whip n tongue’ or cleft graft is easy to understand as the sides (where that green cambium layer is) will align perfectly.
For this kind of graft… the cambium on the rootstock is where? peeled along with the bark? and putting the scionwood (which also has a thin layer of brown ‘bark’) is inserted underneath it?
So this is probably wrong, but the layers to me look like from inside out where insert the scion:
rootstock’s heart/sapwood | scionwood’s heart/sapwood | scionwood’s cambium layer | scionwood’s very thin bark layer | rootstock’s cambium layer | rootstock’s bark layer
Does the scionwood’s ‘very thin’ bark layer not really matter… and both cambium layers will somehow ‘connect’ from them being ‘layered on top of each other’ (vs a whip n tongue graft where the cambium layers I believe are truly connecting ‘radially via their sides’ if that makes sense [which seems very different to me than simply being layered on top of each other])
Somewhat related… I saw in a persimmon grafting tutorial that shows rubbing away at that ‘very thin’ bark layer:
But its not done in the Dave Wilson video so Im curious if that step is not really needed (or needed only with certain kinds of fruits that may have a thicker bark?).
As the first video Dax posted shows some contact on the back side of the scion, as well as contact on the front side. So it doesn’t necessarily matter if the tree is round and the scion cut is straight. If I have to graft to something big, I prefer to graft like this guy, which is pretty similar but slightly different to the bark inlay graft of Dax’s vid.
That guys got a fine technique for bark grafting. I’d like a longer cut that than though. About another inch. That extra healing power or extra healing really puts the scion into a better situation to grow a lot.
@Olpea already answered this with that video and with his response, however, I would recommend for more contact and better healing, more power to the scion, & more response to growing to skim the bark off on the other side of the scions.
Skim to “white”. Don’t keep a green color on a scion. You gotta cut into the sap and heartwood and thru the 1mm or 2mm or however thick green cambial / “live phloem” is depending upon how thick the stick is… that determines the green layer that is directly behind the bark; followed then by sapwood, followed by pith.
It’s the same thing for rooting cuttings. You cannot leave any green tissue on cuttings when they are stuck in soil or they will rot. The scratching off and removal of bark + green tissue must go fully to white color of inner wood behind bark. Roots also form where the thin green layer of cambium tissue meets sapwood. That thin layer we all try to line up on scion to rootstock.
I’m going to make some videos this year. I want to show a lot of techniques.
“For this kind of graft… the cambium on the rootstock is where? peeled along with the bark?”
Yes, and it leaves half (?) on the other side it’s peeled from, too.
I do take my scion’s bark off the back, too, but this can work because rootstock cambium is touching the front side of the scion. It’ll touch both sides if you don’t have that bark in the way.
Very-very important. You wrote it best written to understand.
Thank you 