Even though this year only half of my peach grafts took, it was still a much better investment of time than using the method shown here. I’d spend 30 minutes to complete all those steps, a splice takes about 5. If I was changing over whole long rows in a commercial orchard the time might be worth it because of the need for conformity there- especially for harvest.
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Hi alan I’m franky from India Punjab temperature here is very high 48 degree centigrade at this time of year when is the right time to graft in winters temperature is - 3 degree centigrades and in February its around 18 to 27 degrees centigrades and increases everyday there on
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Are you asking for suggestion on how to graft peaches?
Are peaches commonly grown in your area?
Are you interested in grafting peaches in the spring?
If so, When in the spring that your local temperature reaches 20-24 Celcius?
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I didn’t get this note until today, Franky. If you search the forum, there’s been a lot said about grafting peaches. This year I must of made about 100 peach grafts and almost all of them took, but that hardly makes me an expert on the subject of spring grafting peaches. However, I don’t think it’s really all that complicated now that I know not to tightly wrap the wood when in storage. I use a simple splice graft and believe trees should be leafed out, growing vigorously and temps between 65-80 degrees F or so to get best success. I’m sure you can do the conversion to C.
I use electric tape to connect the scion to the trees shoot I’m grafting to and wrap the exposed scion wood with a type of parafilm called Buddy Tape. It is thinner and more stretchy than other types of parafilm tape.
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I pretty much agree with what Alan wrote on spring grafting. Just about the only difference is that I prefer temps a bit warmer. I don’t like to spring graft peaches until the daytime high is at least 75F for the next week. I’d prefer the daytime high to be in the 80s. Any daytime highs above 90 gives me poor peach grafting results.
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Thanks all for your inputs. @alan i have converted the data and it come to 21 degree centigrades to 29 degree Centigrade. But when i grafted it was evening around 6 pm and temperature was nearly 32 degree centigrade and was upto 26 degrees till next morning 11 am. Will it be successful. Today is third day and it rained heavily last night (grafts were covered with large cement bag) bringing the temperature down to your given temperature range. Till writing of this msg temp is 70 Fahrenheit. I did 7 grafts to increase the chances to success. Thank you in advance. I did grafting on 7 year old tree. Cut it from 5 feet height and next day grafted 7 scions of early grand peach onto heirloom variety
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Going over my notes, this year the main difference seems to be that later grafts were much more successful, regardless of whether temps following were in the mid 60’s or the 80’s. However, it’s a bit hard to tell because the temps fluctuated after grafting and we don’t know for how many days grafts might be affected by temps.
What amazes me is that as far as I can see, not a single one of my E. plum grafts took this season and they’ve never been a problem before. The only difference may be that I grafted them a little early. Sure didn’t hurt my J. plum takes at all as almost every graft took and the early grafting has led to huge growth. Next year I will time my E. plum grafts with my peaches.
Thank you Mamwaung on the tip to graft J. plums relatively early. I wonder why E plums reacted so differently.
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thank you so much! I had virtually nil with peaches last year… only 2 out of 25… but all the apples took. I think you are right,… the growth was just not active enough. I am feeling more confident to give it a go again this year.
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I know this response is to an ancient comment that may not even be held by Scott anymore, but now I have CHAT and the subject has always interested me.
I believe now that at least some and maybe all of these studies were done in greenhouses in CA with bench grafting- where scions don’t dry out so much as on warm spring days outdoors.
I also have a lot more years of doing many grafts of peaches over about a months time in the spring. I still see the strongest success correlation between the state of peach growth compared to temps immediately following grafting. I have gotten good takes when days after never got out of the 60’s and days they got into the 80’s without foil protection.
I think bloom to petal fall is the sweet spot for me- I cannot wait for ideal temps and it doesn’t seem to matter as much as the state of growth in the trees. Also it seems important to hit the sweet spot in collecting scion wood (where it doesn’t start to bud out in the fridge but isn’t stored for too long- I collect in mid-March here) and storing it without rotting the buds.
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Same - but we have this habit in early spring of jumping from too cool to too hot right at grafting time and it taking a while to settle into a nice week of mid 70s.
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I can’t seem to get my peach (scion) grafts to take in zone 6. Most times bud break, bloom, and petal fall all occur when lows are still in 50s and reaching 40s. Which is most important? Temperature or the stage the tree is in?
Alan is clearly stating above that tree stage is the most important to him. For me I think both matter. If the leaves are not out at all, or are fully out, I have had few successes regardless of temperature. I also have few successes at prolonged heat or cold stretches. The ideal stage for me is 1/2"-1" leaves. By 2" leaves I’m giving it my last best shot and they are somewhat less likely to work. Just pick the best temps in the 1/2" to 2" leaf length window and thats the best you can do.
Some stocks have no blooms and the bloom time also varies relative to the leaves so I would only go by leaf growth, not flowers or fruits. The leaves are the best indicator of how the sap is flowing.
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Yup! I went back and read it again and Alan was pretty clear. Don’t know what I was reading originally. Ill be shooting for that leaf length this year and I’ll pray the weather comes in clutch.
Thanks.
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I do a hundred peach grafts a year, at least, and I’m doing a lot of other orchard and nursery managing stuff at the same time, so I always do at least 3 different peach-nect grafting sessions in the spring, I think about a week apart. The first and 2nd tend to be the most successful and the takes give me more growth. I can’t concern myself about a short stretch of hot or rainy weather- they tend to be short stretches here anyway.
If you can time it perfectly, that’s fine, but I think CHAT probably nailed it as far as grafting in the mid-60’s being fine since my own experience seems to match it.
All of us are going to be strongly influenced by our individual observations, which occur in a vast array of conditions that may have subtle influences we don’t see. As far as CHAT goes, Scott could probably get a response from it that matches his recommendations.
Fruit science is far from perfect. I just don’t understand how a short stretch of cool weather would kill a parafilm wrapped scion after sitting in the fridge for a month or two. Burning heat makes more sense to me as a scion killer, but we rarely get all that hot here in the spring.
If it’s sunny the mid-60’s should mean the scions will be in the 80’s. Don’t forget the sun when calculating the temperature, the goal is not air temps ideally in the 70’s its graft junction in the 70’s. An IR temperature gun is very handy for this, I have been surprised at how much difference the sun makes.
(BTW just I noticed that ten years ago above I said 2-3" leaves, I have more years experience now and I’m more inclined to shorter leaves now.)
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But why do you suppose 2 or 3 days of cool shade would destroy the healing process? I experience frequent rain events and cloudy cool days after peaches are in bloom.
So how hot do you suppose the scion wood gets on an 80 degree day?
There are graphs plotting the rate of callous of peach wood vs temperature, and there is a much steeper drop-off below 70 and above 80 compared to other fruits.
That said, you don’t need constant temps in that window. You could graft when it’s cool and shady as long as the temps at the graft get into a good temperature range fairly soon, before the wood starts to get less viable. Ideally it’s going to be in that window in the hours after the graft, but it can be later.
If its 80F and sunny the graft juncture will be much warmer, the exterior bark will be over 100F based on my IR gun but inside on the graft juncture itself my guess is it will be in the 90’s. This is too warm, but on a day with 80’s highs and sunny there should be plenty of other time that day, in morning and evening, when the graft will get several hours in the ideal callous window. It doesn’t need a constant ideal temperature, just enough hours in the ideal range before the viability declines.
EDIT: I looked around for the graph of peach callous rates that I saw many years ago but could not find it. But I found one for walnut which is similar but peaches like it about 10F colder. Here is the walnut graph:
It’s good to keep this graph in mind (shifted 10F to the left) as well as effects of the sun and hottest vs coldest temps. If it’s 90F in the day it might be a perfect 70’s all night. At warmer temps the grafts will more quickly become less viable, that is one reason why aluminum can help when its hot.
One thing I don’t have a clear grasp on is how long grafts are OK just sitting there when it is cold. The colder it is the longer it’s OK for them to just sit there so there is no one answer here. My guess is a couple really cold days after grafting, before it gets some callous window temps, might be OK. A whole cloudy week with highs in the 50s would be bad.
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Temps tend to swing wildly here. I’ve always had great success grafting them when the leaves first start to emerge no matter what the temps are.
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What kind of grafts are y’all doing on peaches in the spring?