I found some plumbers tape (white, thin, non-sticky) and wrapped the wounds this evening. Not the best covering, but better than nothing as it’s supposed to rain and snow tomorrow. I’ll paint them with the wound sealant when it comes in.
I was looking at the non-damaged part of the rootstock on the Suncrisp, and if I wanted to just lop off the whole tree and leave undamaged rootstock, there would just be about two inches left above the ground, so not much to work with there. So, looks like I’ll have to try the bridge grafts.
The snow is getting deep enough out at my land that the critters might be able to get above the hardware wire cages. I am hoping not to need any of this advice on this topic!
We haven’t had enough snow (this year or previous years) to worry about issues like that. But I guess for you folks up north it’s a yearly concern. I’d hate to go out to my supposedly protected trees after all the snow’s melted only to see a bunch of girdled trunks.
I hated to see my trees damaged but many more could have been hit and weren’t, so thankfully the cost of my negligence may only be one tree.
Voles don’t seem to be an issue here like they are in other places. But deer are plenty enough bothersome.
The snow is over my fencing. Found bunny poop inside the fence right next to my cherry tree…it is already eating the smallest branches. Now I’m worried about girdling too.
I have only done bridge grafting once but it seems to have worked well on a plum tree. I recall that it was almost impossible to install short stiff scions. So my advice would be to select long supple scions for the project. I use toilet wax ring as a sealant because it doesn’t seep into the graft like some of the liquid sealers do.
Thanks Dan. What was the diameter of your tree and how many bridges did you do? Did you have to prune back the tree any to help it get back on its feet?
This isn’t the first that I have come across someone mentioning toilet wax for grafting on this forum:
If I dont end up getting around to ordering Doc Farwell’s in time I may just use the toilet wax or Elmers glue. I havent ordered Doc Farwell’s yet because of our back and forth weather, it cannot be exposed to freezing temps.
I have used in it Feb. but on a day that is sunny and not freezing. But I am in Zone 7a. The sealer hardens just like sealing wax and can make through a year or two before the elements get rid of it. By then the wound is more than healed.
I’m just worried about it freezing in the mail. Our weather keeps back and forth from the 40s to the 20s every week. It is currently snowing here for example
This tree was damaged under very different circumstances Bob. When I bought my home there was a large neglected thicket of wild myrobalan plums growing on the periphery. Over the years I have been grafting many different types of plums and hybrids to these existing trees and saplings. Last year I selected a 2" diameter tree that looked like a good candidate for topworking but it was partially strangled by a fence that it was entangled with. A second, older trunk just to the left of it was killed by the same fence wires so I cut the steel wires and pulled them out of the tree. There is a possibility that the tree may be able to heal on it’s own without the bridge but in the interest of “science” I decided to install the bridge.
It was spring time and the bark was slipping so I made a “T” incision below the damage and an inverted “T” above, cut a scion of last years growth and tried to insert it into the slots. It was too stiff and I couldn’t work with it so I cut another softer piece which worked out just fine. It healed pretty rapidly and began throwing out branches which I quickly removed. I also lopped off the top of the tree and grafted a bunch of pluots which are beginning to flower this year.
On the question of the wax ring, yes it is a ring of wax that is placed on the top of the metal flange in the floor where your porcelain toilet is installed. It is smashed down by the weight of the toilet to form a water tight gasket between the metal pipe flange and the porcelain bowl. Really cheap and highly effective as a grafting sealant. I have used it with excellent results on any grafts where there are areas of exposed wood. Think Vaseline but at a much higher viscosity.
I think you can save this tree. Two of my 11 girdled trees were this bad. 9 survived with different forms of grafting including bridge grafting. On the really bad ones I used suckers and ran them up above the damage. Taped them well and painted the rest of the ‘wounds’ with tree tar.
Thanks. I put tree wound compound on the trees the other day to keep them from drying out any more. I can’t do the bridge grafts until it warms up some more and the bark starts to slip. All our apples are still mostly dormant, but there are a few leaf buds peeking out on some. I recently took some scions off the trees and put them in the fridge until it’s time.
I can’t use suckers on this tree as the G30 rootstock doesn’t produce any that I’ve seen, I have three G30 trees. Now my M7 trees, well they usually have plenty.
What time of the year did you do your bridges and what varieties were they? Did you do any pruning of the top to help them recover better?
Hi Bob:
I did the bridge grafting in the spring when the bark had started to slip. The varieties that had been attacked were 1 Duchesse D’Anjouleme and 1 espaliered Rescue pear; 1 Alberta peach; the other 8 were all apple trees, one fairly large.
This spring I discovered 3 of my fig trees in my high tunnel greenhouse had their roots eaten. They all had the hardware cloth collars on their trunks and all were even planted in pots. The little B’s climbed into the pots, tunneled down and ate the roots.
If you have any organic methods of destroying the varmints I would dearly love to hear about them. I’m using electronic rodent traps, and the mechanical snap traps. I just added the garlic sticks placed in tunnels yesterday. Have no idea if they will work but they sure do stink.
Placed some of those in holes I made near the bases of my Chinese Honey Peaches. Do you have any experience with those?
That’s good to hear of your success on the bridges.
Sorry to hear about your fig damage, sounded like they were determined to get at your plants.
Regarding small varmit control, I haven’t had to deal with them yet. My biggest pest is deer, so most of my trees are behind 3 or 4 foot fencing. Looks like now I have a wabbit problem, so my remedy has been to put plastic tubing around the base of the trees that aren’t caged.
I will be bridge grafting a apple tree this year to repair damage done by rabbits in 2017.
One thing i thought of before harvesting the scions was to pick ones that already have a natural bend in them so later i wont have any issues grafting them into the sort of half moon shape that you typically see on bridge grafts.
So, the damage was done 2 years ago? Was the damage really bad? Because I would think after two years to tree wouldn’t be in very good shape. Did you collect your scions this year?
Sounds like a good idea on how you selected your scions, I just made sure to take some that we’re somewhat long and not too thick so they could be bent easier.
I just noticed that you joined the forum recently, so I want to say welcome. I also noticed that that you’re in Florence, Kentucky so you are not too far from me. I am in northeast Kentucky close to Portsmouth, Ohio.
Winter of 2017. I gave the tree time to try and heal and even bought 1 replacement tree.
There was two trees girdled and one has since completely healed.
The one ill be bridge grafting is alive and growing but its not healing very well and from the looks it could snap in half before the trunk sealed the wound by its self.
Ill have to post a picture of it.
Its not as bad as the trees pictured above.
Thanks for welcoming me!
I actually just rejoined because i was having trouble trying to change my old name (NKyNative) to my actual name so i ended up redoing the account.
Ok, was just wondering about when it happened. Hopefully the repair grafts work out. I’m pretty new to grafting, so this is seems pretty daunting, but I have to try. I don’t want to have to lop off all that top growth, so I’ll give it a shot.
I think one of the mods could have done that for you.
I guess you met @Zafak already, he’s in your area, and so is @jtburton. @MikeC is just north of y’all, and I think @amy is moving to your area from Michigan, if she hasn’t already arrived.
I’m not a KY native (Okie), but my wife is, we moved up here from north Texas to her family farm five years ago. I started planting trees three years ago, and also some berry plants. No fruit from our trees yet, but hope to get some this year. We’ve already had some berries to try out. Plus, we grow lots veggies every year.
Have you harvested any fruit off your trees yet? What varieties of apples, pears, peaches do you have? Have y’all had good luck with getting peaches?
Grafting is not too bad, last year was my first year grafting and i had good results.
I did watch a ton of videos on grafting before i understood exactly what, when & where i needed to graft but it worked out well.
I didnt think to ask for help on the name change.
I was a member but i wasnt very active on here so i didnt think twice on deleting it and immediately making a new account but after understanding the badge system i wish i would have asked.
Thanks for pointing out some of the locals.
I have been curious what works for my area but dont know anyone else growing fruit trees to ask.
As bad with names as i am i somehow remembered Zafak from a youtube comment where he gave me directions to several pawpaw patches near Florence.
I actually still have the screenshot saved in my phone of those directions.
Still havent had any fruit off my trees yet except for a couple persimmons and figs.
Apples :
Fuji
Honey Crisp
Pink Lady
Golden Delicious
Plus about 6 other varieties i grafted on last yr.
I have a bunch of grafting to do this spring and if it all goes well ill add several apple varieties, some asain pears, apricots, plums and other peach varieties to these trees.
No peaches yet, i just planted those last summer but hopefully next year i will get some.
