I guess I’m being a little overly cautious after a mistake on waiting too long on an espaliered apple tree last year. A deer had destroyed one of the branches from the lowest tier on a 4 year old espallier. I induced a lower bud to break by notching and it grew well.
I was paranoid on bending it down because I knew it would have a hard time putting on the length it needed without apical dominance. I waited until the end of the summer to bend it down and it had already hardened too much too bend it without risking breaking it. So now I guess I’m being overly cautious on not having a repeat of that.
Fruitwood Nursery gave me good sized scions this year. Perfect size for chip budding. My vanity walnut is already starting to break through the tape.
Horne Creek, very small. I was a bit shocked to be honest, but I think some of the chip buds will take. I tried some omega grafting too, but chip budding is where I usually have the most success.
I appreciate the suggestions on this thread. Since I chip bud, I need big buds.
Thanks for all the helpful replies. I ended up doing some whip and tongue and a bunch of modified cleft. I did a few bark grafts, but didn’t have a ton of confidence as the cambium was mostly lifting with the bark. I’ll report back on the successes!
Although the scions were small, Fedco’s rootstock is really nice. Lots of very bushey healthy roots. They were also really good on the customer service end.
When picking scion wood from 100+ year old pears in abandoned orchards or by roadside, often the only new branches one can get (or reach - thanks to deer) are 2-3mm thin. One is lucky to get a 4mm stick. I’ve managed to graft quite a bunch successfully using goat’s foot grafting as they were too thin and brittle for anything else.
I’m not sure the “stored energy” in the small piece of scion your graft to a (in comparison) massive rootstock is much of a factor.
In my experience the size and “maturity” of the buds on the scion are usually a better indicator. Id rather have a thin scion with well defined buds than the other way around!
Although the golden russet clearly is the terminal part of the scion. The buds closest to the end usually have slightly worse success. But can still be used in a pinch.
I love chip budding. since a size mismatch is not a factor. (within reason)
If made a topic with pictures how to graft really thin 1/12th inch scions on thicker stock.
I have had nice thick J. plum scions grow into a 1" diameter 8’ tall well branched trees (on top of the existing tree) in one growing season and that is with our not especially long NY growing season. I feel certain that will never happen with a scion that starts as a toothpick no matter what it’s grafted to and I put an awful lot of grafts on established, vigorous trees. I often convert older apple trees to new varieties for clients along with grafting 2-4 year old well rooted trees in my nursery.
But thinking about it, stored energy may have nothing to do with it. When you use a thicker scion it is like having a thicker diameter hose that increases access to water and nutrients from the roots from the get go. Of course such a scion will establish more quickly than one trying to pull that sap from a tiny straw.
The reason why is theoretical but the reality of more vigorous growth from thicker scions is irrefutable to my experience. Not that I expect anyone else to be impressed with my anecdotes, but do some comparisons and tell me what you find out with spring grafting.
I agree with you, because I’d think that a thicker scion requires more to just survive anyway, any more energy there may be gets used up to keep it alive.
There is a trade-off between how thick the scion is and how conducive it is to grafting. If thicker was always better we’d be grabbing 1" diameter scions if we could. But there is a diminished return, the thicker wood is more mature and doesn’t seem to callous as well based on my experience. The thing that compensates for that is thicker wood can on the other hand be more vigorous, which is better for success. A thin but vigorous scion is the best.
Re: the hose analogy, if that was true professional nurserymen would not be bud grafting nearly all of their fruit trees … with bud grafting there is only one tiny bud, not even a thin hose.
I’m not so sure, though. I think it’s more likely that budding is a way to get your grafted variety to use the full “hose” diameter of the rootstock, as once it calluses it’s just like any other bud on that trunk/stem. If you graft a thin stick to a thick rootstock, then the sap flowing from the rootstock to the bud on scion has to pass through the bottleneck of the thin scion along the way.
Although at first glance this seems plausible and likely. I think however the reasoning is flawed here.
While grafting. You cut both types of vascular tissue (phloem and xylem). And thus sticking to your hose analogy, the hose is cut.
By grafting we’re trying to reconnect the “hose”
However, reconnecting existing xylem is not possible. When the graft heals, existing phloem is reconnected (i think, can’t find the source for where i remember reading this) and vascular cambium starts making new xylem and phloem.
Here the hose analogy brakes down. Since when reconnecting a hose, the middle part is conductive again, however with grafting the middle part (xylem) can’t be reconnected. But you could compare it to a kink in the hose.
The graft union (kink in the hose) is the bottleneck. The thickness of the scion (hose) after the kink does not affect throughput to any reasonable degree.
Think about it. If also seen 1" thick branches grow from a single small bud in 1 growing season. There wasn’t even a “hose” there to begin with. But still it could grow to 1" in a season.
If we’re guessing. I think the cambium thickness probably plays more of a role. In older wood it’s often a few cells thick. And younger but mature wood it can be a few times thicker. Thus more cambium thickness = faster graft healing and faster vascular tissue growth = faster repairing of “the hose” and growing a thicker “hose”.
It first has to pass through the “bottleneck” of the graft union. And if you think about it, as soon as the bud starts growing a shoot, that shoot isn’t immediately 1" thick. Should that not be a larger “bottleneck” than the scion the new shoot is attached to?
I think a “hose” is a bad analogy for what happens in a tree. A hose is a reasonable analogy for the xylem, since that is a collection of thousands to millions of tiny tubes filled with water. However at that scale Capillary action dominates. And the tubes don’t “act like” we are used to from a macroscopic scale “hose”
Next to that, in tree’s there are multiple separate “transport routes” for example the xylem mainly transports water (and dissolved substances) upwards. However there is also phloem, which can transport both ways. And transports most of the sugar. The phloem acts more like interconnected “pumps” than a hose.
anyway, if not seen a significant difference between thin scions and thick scions in growth. And now a few years later some of my thickest stems where from some tiny scions. However last few years i mainly switched to chip budding so, that anecdote is from a few years of growth.
The graft connects and healing is accomplished in spring giving the rest of the season to benefit from the larger diameter of not only the scion but the diameter of the shoot it is grafted to. You have to realize that I’m grafting to water sprouts and a thicker water sprout obviously is more vegetatively vigorous than a thinner one. The further down you graft on the water sprout the less energy will be drawn to buds below the graft on that water sprout. Think of a water sprout as a small individual and immature tree whose roots begin with the tree it is attached to.
As far as diminishing returns, the problem for excessively large scions is not about vigor of growth after healing, it is that they never take at all. There is a point where the original stress of water loss kills the scion, apparently, and an over thick piece of wood dries out quicker than a thinner one or needs a few more days to heal and dries and dies before it is accomplished. Diminishing returns probably isn’t the right term for that, the drop-off is sudden. . .
