Tree sealant necessary for larger bark grafting?

I am curious as to why you whacked off the tops of the long scions. As giant as that r/s is, it could have supplied sap to scions several feet long, so to speak. It is possible that one of the upper bud’s shoots would have been superior to other buds that grew out, At a later date you could have clipped off any unimpressive new shoots and let the r/s pour it’s life into the best of the best. Sort of like ‘survival of the fattest’, as well as the most vertical.

I cut down the scions to have less material that needed sap flow to keep it from drying out. I read that longer scions can dry out. Since I forgot to wrap in parafilm a week ago, I wanted to increase my chances of it taking. I have three scions of the same variety at each stump, so I’m not too worried about cutting down the number of buds.

Unfortunately, all of the scions dried out. I think I was too late in wrapping the scions completely with parafilm. I was planning on topworking the citrus or removing it entirely. I had someone point out to me that the orange tree was suffering signs of gummosis anyways, the bark was peeling at the base. So I will be removing the tree sometime in the next 2 weeks.

So, anyone have any suggestions for an evergreen fruit tree suitable for my zone 10A? I’d love to put in an avocado but I have already killed one of those and I don’t think I want to give an avocado the amount of water it would require. I then thought mango, but I don’t know how well they would do here. I’d like the tree to be fairly vigorous as it does help block off the neighbors.

Thanks!

It’s not about a rootstocks delivery potential, that is mostly irrelevant in the immediate sense. It’s about the fact that initially there is only a small amount of formed vascular tissue so regardless of RS size the delivery potential just isn’t there in the beginning. Watch the professional grafters top working large trees, they’re not using big long scions. Keeping the scion alive while it heals and vascular tissue is formed is key. Once that happens the growth will be there.
In other words. a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link. In this case the weakest link is the point of marriage between RS and scion.

Sorry to hear about the scions drying out. I feel like I get invested in other people’s projects and feel disappointed when they don’t work! If you wanted to try one more time, you make the cuts again lower down in the tree (and wrap your scions in advance). But I suppose the disease issues weigh against that.

Thanks Lizzy. I would totally re-graft if it were not for the problem at the base of the trunk. I think all of my grafting failures makes the successes that much more exciting anyways :smile:

I’m batting about 95% on plum grafts (I can’t get Flavor King to take for the life of me), 20% on peach/nectarine grafts and 0% on citrus.