I decided to try a few peach grafts yesterday, I put 16 grafts on three different trees. From what I’ve read here, peaches can be a real challenge.
Jason
You need to cover the scions with parafilm to prevent drying out. If you don’t have then take a white plastic grocery bag and cut a 2 " strip and about a foot long and wrap up those scion woods. once you see buds pushing or leafed out then remove the plastic strips. Peaches are very picky to take. Plus rub off all the new growth below the union.
Tony
Ok, you can’t tell in the photo , but I painted them with a 50/50 elmers glue and water. I will try to get them wrapped up this evening. Also on some of the other grafts I used the biggest size scion I had and cut it short with only a few buds, hopefully give it less surface area to dehydrate from. I will wrap them too per your advice,hopefully give them the best chance to make it.
Looks good Jason.
Tony
I think if I can get a peach to take I will have really learned to graft.
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Had near 100 take on peach this season when wrapped with parafilm. Had maybe 10% without. Parafilm make a huge difference.
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Is it just Parafilm specifically that gives the near 100, or could some other sort of wrap be used, say electrical tape?
Parafilm has not been essential for me. I’ve succeeded with ordinary masking tape (and failed with Parafilm).
Noted with thanks. How long do your grafts usually take to “take”, and what sort of grafting do you mostly employ. I’m just learning 
Hi, Dan: Look at this thread for some information on “take” times, e.g., Bob Vance’s records. The size of the rootstock and scion tends to suggest one type of graft or the other. I have had good luck with cleft and bark grafting peaches, usually grafting a little later in the season.
Here’s the result of a cleft-grafted peach after 1 year. The branch is about 2’ long and covered in flowers. The graft union is about 1/2" to the right of my finger (the diagonal line). The end of the scionwood last year can be seen by the circle about 3" further right.
For scionwood where the diameter is similar to the host tree’s branch, I do a single cleft graft. If the scionwood is smaller, I do a double-cleft (2 scions in one cut).
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I don’t think I’ve ever had as fast of takes on grafts as I have on peaches this year. I’ve got 20 apparent takes on the 25 grafts I made 7-10 days ago.
The weather has been very warm during that time (77-82 degree highs in 8 of 10 days), so maybe that has helped. I feel like I may jinx it though- I remember thinking I had a few takes last year which didn’t last.
Part of the credit also goes to the excellent scionwood which @scottfsmith, @Olpea, and @tonyOmahaz5 sent me (thank you!). I’m especially excited because all the peach grafts I made last spring are carrying fruit this year. So it may only be a year until I can try a dozen new varieties.
For several, I made clumps of backups (which saves on making more labels), like this Early Crawford.
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Congrats on the peach takes, Bob!
My latest success is a Mirabelle de Nancy plum chip on Coe’s Golden Drop (Marianna rootstock).
I think the warm temps over the past 2 weeks definitely helped some of my plum grafts.
I finally grafted your pear scions yesterday. Here’s hoping for more success…
Everybody’s peach grafts look great. I grafted these in early Feb, and some have really taken off.
The rootstocks are peach/nectarine pits from last year or the year before.
Here is a peach/nectarine combo I T-budded two weeks ago. I clipped the tops off yesterday to force growth to the new buds. I’m going to take a picture every week to show the growth (assuming it lives) fingers crossed.
Here’s a side graft which I made a few days ago. I’m not sure how these will go, as I’m a lot more comfortable making cleft grafts on like sized wood, rather than cutting into a trunk.
This is a new peach tree I planted from DWN which only leafed out from a single branch (and pretty high up). Since it is at the end of a row, I want branches in other directions, so I side grafted 3 more cultivars on.
The pic shows the graft in progress- I also tied it tightly with green tap and added more parafilm around the base, similar to how I do cleft grafts.
Bob,
Glad to hear about this success. Ironically, I haven’t grafted my peaches yet and I’m further south. I’ve probably had an opportunity or two, but have just kept waiting for more ideal weather. It doesn’t seem to come, just keeps staying a bit cool. The national weather service is predicting 80 degrees this weekend, then back to cool temps in the high 60s. I did graft the apple wood you sent. Your peach and nectarine wood is still in the fridge. I checked it the other day and it still looks good.
Just grafted Carmen, Indian Free, Late Crawford and Lord Napier I got from the USDA in March. My 1st attempt at a multi variety peach. Temps now are in the low 80’s for highs and low 60’s for lows. They were covered with foil after the picture, I am hoping for better success this year.
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Chris, assuming you have good cambium contact there you should get some hits - those temps are absolute perfection. But, even on good peach grafting weather its often less than 100%.
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