Top working Pears weather permitting today. I don’t like grafting with these temperature swings we are getting but I can’t wait much longer or it will get to hot. This is my first grafts of the year. Might as well just jump right in. Grafting this one and several others to Douglas. Wish me luck! How’s your grafting going?
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Larger trees like this take about 2-3 hours to top work. Cleft grafting is a little slower but in two years you won’t be able to tell they were grafted. Rind grafts I use on larger trees and they typically take 3-5 years to heal over completely. This wild pear has rejected scions numerous times. I’m using Douglas scions this time based on my opinion it’s easier to graft than other pears. Instead of grafting to the trunk like I normally would do notice i’m doing a lot of extra small grafts which is to increase my chances of this stubborn pear taking scions.
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Are you top working over to 1 variety per tree?
Kelby,
In this case yes just Douglas pears on this one. This pear tree the grafts failed on it the last several years. I would have loved to have done multi grafts but with this tree I will be lucky if I can even get Douglas to take. Some of my other trees will be multi-grafts. It’s sibling is 10 feet away blooming like crazy so you could say I’ve lost at least 2 years worth of pears already. No worries I think I will have enough rootstock. I planted 400 more pears this year also and have another 200 that I still need to put in the ground.
Clark
Not intending it as criticism, but that really seems like overkill!
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For me a few trees like that would be called practice. I could use some of that. But like Clark said the weather is so up and down my head’s spinning. Don’t know if I should try my few twigs or not.
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Those grafts look great! Where’s Worden?
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Thank you Matt I just graft the same way every time. I have not grafted worden yet because of this weird weather. I don’t want to lose that variety. It’s on my list this week.
Kelby,
This pear has been a problem tree for a few years and some are like that. It seems like overkill but take my word for it I’m just doing what I need to. I have one more pear like that I will need to deal with and then the remaining pears are just normal pears.
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Well good luck!
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Fruitnut,
I think I needed the practice too after a year without doing it which is why I started with that pear. That first tree went slower than the next couple of trees did. Notice I left my wood a shade longer than I needed to in case the grafts don’t take. This weather is keeping me guessing but I figure if I wait until it gets any warmer I’m going to flood my grafts for sure.
I had a virginiana persimmon seedling that took 3-4 years of trying before something stuck. With seedlings incompatibility could be higher due to some gene.
I was about to start grafting but now a cool spell is coming through, looks like it will be the following weekend instead.
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Scott,
Sounds like you’ve been down that road with seedlings. They are the best trees around sometimes once I figure out how to work with them. I have a very wet area in my field with poor soil that I’m growing seedling pears that came from a similar area. Seedlings are challenging for grafting like you said because they are each genetically unique but those same unique characteristics are the thing that allows them to survive without me.
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Hopefully got through all the tougher to graft older pear trees. I grafted over several to Douglas yesterday and just finished a Clara frijs today.
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Clark you’re a worker for sure. I get tired just looking at your pictures.
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Fruitnut,
Your place looks fantastic which takes a lot of hard work. Your fig and stone fruit crops are going to be huge this year! I’m just top working some pears but they won’t need anything special once I get them going. If these grafts take the trees will be producing bushels of good quality pears in just 2-3 years.
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Love the pictures
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Thank you Bill!
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Looking good! Your area is several weeks ahead of me, our earliest bradford weeds are just starting to bloom around here. I haven’t really started to graft yet aside from a couple oddball projects.
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