I always thought lignum vitae (native to south FL) was the hardest:
The wood is hard, heavy and self-lubricating, and has a Janka Hardness Score of 4500.
I had one of them growing in my greenhouse for a few years from a seed I collected from a family member’s tree in south FL, but it eventually died last year and I’m drying it out and hoping it has enough heartwood for a reusable toothpick 
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mesquite?
I thought osage was the hardest domestic wood. I didn’t realize live oak was so much harder than white oak.
thanks for referencing the janka hardness. Id really like to find a source of some osage lumber sometime.
The method I use for CHE is…
A week or so before grafting I cut A ring around the osage orange rootstock down to the wood, an inch or so above the ground.
Then cut the top off a foot or so above the intended grafting site.
Each day I cut another inch off the top of rootstock.
Usually after topping it 3-4 times there is much less latex.
That’s when I graft.
Not sure if all this is necessary ?
But it has been working for me .
timing is important, Id say. Maybe try holding off on watering? I grafted 10 che grafts and all took. Ive had issues with mulberries at times, but I think mostly related to lack of active growth.
Ah, I didn’t know it ranged into Florida. In that case, yes, osage is 4th, lignum vitae 1st.
Olneya tesota. Mesquite is pretty hard too, 2,340 lb/ft. Olyeya tesota is only available as turning blanks and small items for carving, so I guess it depends on what counts as commercially available. As for osage, I know the hardwood stores around here sometimes have it, though they probably have the big South American species not our native one.
Dude, live oak is on another level. Some of the softer oaks like southern red oak and California black oak are around 1000 to 1100 lb/ft, and then some of the harder ones like pin oak and holm oak are closer to 1500 to 1600 lb/ft. And then there’s southern live oak at just shy of 2,700 lb/ft! And it’s a close enough relative to white oak that they make viable hybrids, so it’s not like it’s way off on its own genetic island.
https://www.wood-database.com/ is a great reference for this kind of stuff. I’ve been surprised by a lot of things browsing around that site. Had no idea, for example, just how much stronger and harder southern yellow pines are than pretty much any other pine. Longleaf, slash, and loblolly pine are all harder than tulip poplar, and they’re in the same range as red oaks for modulus of rupture. Comparing even loblolly, which is the slacker of the group, with eastern white pine is hilarious. Janka hardness: 690 lb/ft vs 380 lb/ft. Modulus of rupture: 12,800 lb/ft/in2 vs 8,600 lb/ft/in^2. Crush strength: 7,120 lb/ft/in^2 vs 4,800 lb/ft/in^2.
Does anyone have any extra che grafted to osage orange for sale, or have a place they recommend?
Welcome to the forum!
I actually got mine off Etsy to save a few bucks. We’ll find out if that was a mistake one it fruits I guess.
Several nurseries carry them. I don’t have any in particular I’d suggest, maybe one in your region to keep shipping lower.
I got rootstocks from Fruitwood for $7 apiece and scionwood from England’s for $7 per stick. I don’t yet know if I’ll succeed in my first attempt to graft them, but hard to beat those prices from reputable sources.
That sounds like a great deal! I just checked fruitwood, but they are sold out.
Thank you! I will take a look on Etsy.
Burntridge has 8-16 inch seedlings… 3 bucks.
You might have to plant those one spring and graft them the following spring.
Both make impenetrable hedges apparently. I’ve seen trifoliate used for this purpose and it’s better than barbed wire! Che is def more edible.
Thank you for the tip, these can be hard to find.
My scionwood from England’s arrived yesterday, so now I just have to decide how long I should wait before trying to graft them. The rootstocks that went in the ground bareroot a month ago still look fully dormant, so I figure I’ll at least wait for those to have some minimal sign of waking. Here are two of those:
I waited till things were warm last year and had good success. 80s during the day
Hah! Our warmest month averages a high in low-mid 70s, so I’d have to hope for a heat wave!
EDIT: I just fact-checked myself and actually now that they use 1991-2020 as the “climate normals” our warmest month is almost 80 on the warmest day:
But even still, I would worry that the scionwood won’t last until August, so I’ll probably graft a lot sooner.
Not sure what site you used for that, but I’m a big fan of the NOWData interface, though it takes awhile to figure out all the options. Here’s the one that includes you:
https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=mhx
And the chart in the same format as the one I posted above:
Definitely a bit different! 
And I actually like the temperature chart view even better because it adds the daily record temperatures. Here are those for both of us, just to pull this thread even further off topic:
One interesting bit there is we have almost exactly the same date for the latest spring freeze ever recorded (latest record low below the dotted line).
Crazy that y’all have a way higher heat record. What’s that like 108 F? 0_0
Hard to say, but looks like we’ve never broken past 104 F. Granted, we’ve had 100+ F days from May through September, so…
Interesting that our earliest frost was at the beginning of October. There’ve been years where we didn’t get a hard frost until December. The different in day/night spread is also pretty crazy. I knew it was different but holy smokes.
