Root grafting

General Fruit Growing
#41

Keep us informed.
Just cutting one of those root sections and potting it has failed to produce a plant for me.

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#42

That’s exactly how they used to do it, I’ve been reading old gardening books for the period when piece root grafting from french crabapple seedling stock was the industry standard. The rootstock in your photo looks like a good size, they would often cut a root into about 3 sections. Something like 2-4" of root on 4-6" of scion, then the graft union is kept 3" below the soil line. Another interesting take away from reading about the era of commercial scale grafting before the clonal rootstocks, it was always considered better if your scion rooted, trees on their own roots were considered healthier and longer lived. I use full sized rootstocks, we don’t have much use for dwarfing stocks in zone 3. Planning ahead to make a percentage of my bench grafts root grafts this spring… which I can do as soon at the ground thaws in mid April. Need cold storage for next winter, all I can do is sit around dreaming about bench grafting now…

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#43

I’ve played around with root grafting a bunch of times. It’s a really handy trick to have up your sleeve if you’re hard up for rootstock. I’ve even had it work on semi-hard cuttings in full leaf, taking roots from the mother tree. If they’re the same genetically, they knit up pretty quickly!
The Grafter’s Handbook even talks about grafting nurse roots of completely unrelated species, as apparently they can keep the scion fed or at least hydrated for a time while rooting occurs. I haven’t bothered with that, personally, but pretty amazing nonetheless! I’ve found that certain varieties can be really suited to producing nice root grafting rootstock. The contorted mulberry variety ‘Unryu’ for example, makes the most consistent long ropey pencil-ish diameter roots. It’s nothing to dig up a 6’ long section and you have the makings of a bunch of grafts. I’d say take is often reduced for me compared to other methods, probably for various reasons.

Two things I’ve grappled with and not necessarily settled on an answer I’m satisfied with:

  1. How to best align for proper “cambial” contact. I assume roots don’t have cambium per se, and they tend to have much thicker and corkier bark, which is obviously specialized for absorption vs: protection as in the case of true bark. I generally aim to match diameter if possible, and use a whip graft. Clefts seem more damaging and harder to heal, plus it’s hard to cut roots to a nice sharp point. Because of the thicker bark, I aim to have the root slightly oversized. I’m curious what all your thoughts and experiences suggest on the matter.

  2. Others already mentioned the question of wrapping the graft. I generally use a very light application of 1/2” parafilm stretched out quite a bit so that it is easily removed later. Often, I find I need to bind the graft together too, so I’ve been known to use cotton thread over top of the parafilm thinking it will degrade. In practice, I wind up checking on things and removing the whole works if it’s something that I really care about. What’s your preferred wrapping and aftercare technique and why?

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#44

Has anyone tried root grafting jujube?

If root grafting would have decent success rate it would certainly save some thorn injuries of dealing with seedlings. Most of my seedlings are really vicious.

Thanks

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#45

The roots have cambium cells just like the top of the tree. From what I’ve been able to research the whip and tongue graft is the most common one to use. Here’s a quote from The Nursery Manual (1934): Propagation by Means of Budding and Grafting Part 3 - Small Farmer's JournalSmall Farmer's Journal

“The parts are usually held by winding with waxed string or waxed bands. The string should be strong enough to hold the parts securely and yet weak enough to be broken without hurting the hands. No. 18 knitting cotton answers this purpose admirably. It should be bought in balls, which are allowed· to stand for a few minutes in melted wax. The wax soon saturates the ball. The ball is then removed and laid away to dry, when it is ready for use. This waxed string will remain almost indefinitely in condition for use.”

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#46

Thanks for the reply, Doug. The link you sent along is great too. Much obliged.

-Devin

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#47

update. None of the satsuma root grafts survived. The scion and the root fused together and the scion leafed out but the roots collapsed and rotted.

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#48

Thanks for the update. Trying this on callery pears soon

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#49

I am hopeful to get this done this weekend. We’ll see!

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#50

update, a weeok or so after my grafts onto pieces of roots failed, I went out to my in-ground trees and dug around until I found a root of the right thickness, then cut it once and brought the detached end to the surface for grafting. Grafted owari twigs onto three of them. One took and is now about 18"tall.

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#51

Some time over the next week or two I’ll lift all of my bench grafts from this spring, which included quite a few root grafts for the first time and I’ll make sure to post results.

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