I like doing single bud grafts with scionwood too. It stretches the wood you’re short on and allows for more grafting. If the bud takes your good to go! I use a tool that makes it easy to graft short wood. I do a lot of them and have some redundancy.
I usually left 2 buds per bark graft.
Tony
1 Like
I tried whip and tongue on a single rootstock last year and frankly butchered it. The scion leafed out, but then died several weeks later. I presume it was latent energy in the scion. Of all the grafts I tried in the spring (probably close to two dozen) only one took and that was my runted spy. I used a grafting tool, but I think I just got going far too late in the season.
Last fall I did a LOT of T-buds. Most were from such small samples that the trees ejected them rather than healed them in. I do think I may have succeeded with 2 or 3 though. I’ll see in a couple of months I guess.
I’m going to be grafting 22 rootstocks this spring and plan to try a variety of methods. I received a very nice Opinel for Christmas as well as another roll of parafilm tape. Additionally, I’m buying one of those Craftsman cutters and some 3M splicing tape. I refuse to accept a single successful graft this year. I’m going to try a few more Whip & Tongue both with the knife and the Craftsman tool. I may try some cleft grafts though I’m really uneasy about the look of the graft union long term. (pure snobby, no legitimate reason for it) I may try the grafting tool as well again.
Rootstocks should be here in a couple weeks. I suppose I better start scrambling for scions and get my orders in asap. (Yeah, I should have had that a month ago, I know…)
1 Like
One bud, as either they all take or none of them take. One bud is much less likely to get knocked out of alignment with rough handling.
4 Likes
Not only is there no legitimate reason (from an aesthetics pov), but there is really no reason at all not to use a cleft. If the host and scion are similar size and not wildly different in terms of their bark characteristics, you will not even be able to find the graft union in a season or two. If the sizes are considerably different, then the cleft is one of the obvious choices anyway. WT (when properly executed) may become “hidden” a bit sooner…maybe, but nothing worth even thinking about imo.
It is my opinion, and that of many others, that a cleft is the easiest graft to pull off, so if you had a lot of failures last season with the WT, then you really should give a few clefts a try.
2 Likes
I use scions with two buds 95% of the time. With interstem I double graft with the interstem being 6-10 inches long, these have taken fine the last two years.
1 Like
To be clear, I’m a complete newbie at this stuff and I’m not passing judgments on anyone. I assure you that you all are light years ahead of what I know. My concern on the cleft graft came in part from this picture from applenut:
The take on that graft looks fantastic and it’s clearly very healthy. I have a hard time seeing those two blending together un-noticably down the road though. And honestly, who cares? The point is to get fruit, not win beauty contests.
Thankfully this isn’t quite true, although true enough as AS means it. He’s not talking about the most brutal, graft on stub methods but splice and whip and tongue (so much more elegant) methods.
But even with these less brutal methods, one can see the slight swelling of the graft for at least several years, which is fortunate, because I would otherwise accidentally prune off established grafts in the act of pruning more than I already do. I really hate that!
Super G,
Don’t stressed over what the graft looked like because in about 3 years or so you may not even see where the union was due to the healing process. I accidently pruned off several grafts in the past of my 25 varieties apple tree.
Tony
1 Like
I like to paint my graft unions after they heal. I learned that trick at the CRFG Prusch Orchard. They put a nice band of red paint at the graft union - you can’t miss it then!
6 Likes
Good ideas.
Tony
Good tip. Any special kind of paint such as Interior latex like used for borer paint?
Back to original question of using very long scions to graft. People say it speeds up scion fruiting but how can a young scion support the weight of fruit without several years of growth?
I’m mostly concerned in the cases of grafting rootstock and not wanting a garish looking tree in the yard that has a big bulge in the middle of the trunk. I don’t need the graft to disappear, but I also don’t want the first thing people think when they see one of my trees to be “What is going on THERE?”
I tend to graft higher up the rootstock than most I think. My graft unions are typically 6-8" above the soil line. This habit (a whole years worth of habit…hahah) comes from reading that the higher up the rootstock you graft the more of the properties it passes on. Additionally, if the graft doesn’t take, I can chop below it next year and keeping the union higher reduces any chances of suckering from the union being too close to the ground.
I tried not to let the newly graft to fruit the first year by removing all the flowers and let the scion grew. You will be suprised how much it grew after one season. Second season fruit is fair game from there on with good thinning.
Tony
2 Likes
I believe this applies to interstems only. The advantage of grafting a bit high on a dwarfing rootstock is that even if you mulch right up to the trunk (not recommended) or the tree sinks (too deep a hole?) you won’t lose the roots dwarfing capacity with scion rooting.
Fruit trees on non-dwarfing rootsocks should be planted about level with the union according to most guidelines.
For bench grafting, or to young root stocks, I also have the habit of grafting higher than usual. In my case, its to give more than one chance of getting a good cut.
I love the tip as well. For now on I’m packing some spray paint in my truck, not to blatant a color but something easy enough to see.
1 Like
OK, but those two are wildly different in size, at least in comparison with equally sized host/scion. The fact, that they are of considerable different size, yet the host is less than 2" or so is likely why the cleft was chosen by applenut, because in this scenario it’s an obvious method choice. In that scenario, the union will be noticeable for some time, regardless of the method chosen and likely the cleft would result in the cleanest union quicker than any other method I can think of.
As far as becoming un-noticeable down the road, well, you might be surprised. I know I have been. Besides, as has already been pointed out, there are some real advantages to the union remaining recognizable, at least for some time, especially when top working with multiple varieties.
I also think the red marking paint is a nice tip. I agree with H’man though…for me, I think I’d rather have a color not so eye catching as red…for both me, and the birds.
My place is pretty wild so some red paint on grafts wouldn’t be noticeable but on some of the estates I work at where they cut-blow and dry their lawns- sometimes twice a week, the red paint might be objectionable- same thing goes double for butchering a tree and putting on clefts. I probably shouldn’t describe it as butchering, but rather, stubbing large wood.
I don’t object to any method of grafting that brings about a change to useable fruit and cleft grafts of big wood can work very quickly. Even they eventually are hidden as the scions grow and catch up with the diameter of the original branch.
1 Like