Anyone use this for benchgrafting? I’m doing a run of cornus mas and was advised to use either bark or veneer graft. Seems that whip and tongue, my preferred technique, does not work so well with cornus, acer species. I’m also trying dormant chip grafting, using ‘mega chipbud inlay’ shown here:
http://www.redfernfarm.com/Practical%20Grafting.pdf
Please post some photos of your ‘mega chipbud inlay’ grafts. Sounds like a very interesting technique, although I wonder what the union will look like over time.
A day into the cornus mas grafting- it’s made me appreciate the ease of working with malus, pyrus, prunus species.
Cornus is quite twiggy in growth, the best 1st year wood might be 3/16, more likely 1/8" and the wood is quite dense with a very thin bark layer; all this make for ‘tricky carpentry’ when grafting.
I’m now trying three different techniques with bareroot stock, veneer(easiest), z-graft, mega-chip inlay(hardest). I’m using parafilm then a budding rubber over it for all three. I’ll try to take some photos as I go.
I think the mega chip inlay would be easier if my rootstock was more sizable. Hope at least one of these pans out!
They are in damp sawdust in my cellar @40-50 F til the ground is workable for planting- still a 2’ snow pack out there.
I’m trying to improve my pitiful success rate grafting small nut stock. I just can’t get the hang of whip-and-tongue, so I’m casting about for different approaches. Cleft grafts, which work well for fruit, just don’t seem to have the same effect with nuts. Is anyone using the side veneer graft?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB14qdWt_-U
Seems almost as easy as a cleft. Thanks for ideas.
Marc
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I haven’t used it for nuts, but have for cornus mas and mulberry, which it works well for.
Easy enough to make the cuts, I then parafilm and also use a budding rubber to insure a good union.
Not the greatest photos, these are cornus mas that I grafted using side veneer, z, mega bark inlay grafts, all took.
Marc,
I do a veneer (bark graft) for the majority of stuff I graft - oaks, persimmons, pears, - and yes, pecans/hickories/walnuts.
Excessive ‘bleeding’ can be an issue for the nut trees, so I often do what’s called the ‘sap-stopper’ modification - instead of totally beheading the rootstock, just cut ~3/4 of the way through, and break the top over, leaving it ‘hanging’. Acts as a ‘sap-drawer’, and prevents flooding of the graft.
Make your vertical incision in the rootstock bark, then a long, sloping cut in the base of the scion - as if you were just going to do a simple whip/splice graft, but then shave bark off the ‘sides’ of that basal cut, in order to expose cambium on the lateral sides. Slide the scion into the vertical slit, wrap, and away you go.
Once the scion initiates growth, you can come back and gently snip off the ‘hanging top’ of the rootstock.
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Sweet. I took a grafting class from Tom Wahl of Red Fern Farm last spring. He is a huge proponent of that Modified Mega Chipbud Bark Inlay graft or the Pecan graft as he’s calling it since it was used primarily for pecans in China where the technique was imported from. However, I have yet to try it outside of class! Seems pretty fool-proof. He says newbies get 98% success rate using it. I will have a cornus mas to graft next spring that I’ll try it on. I believe Tom uses it mostly on pecan, hickory, walnut, chestnut, persimmon and pawpaw.
What I see with the mega bark inlay chipgraft on my c mas trees is the the upper portion of the graft did not take, only at the level of the grafted bud and below has the stock and scion callused and unified.
So, I did mostly veneer grafts with my c mas this year, since it seemed to have the same success rate, and be easier carpentry.