@Poorwolf
It sounds like you did your best with the type of a problem i was bringing up. In Kansas mm111 is a good rootstock in my opinion but other people sometimes use different things. Bud9 will not do well in this environment. Sounds like you did everything right! @BlueBerry
Congratulations on your grafting it sounds like you were fortunate this year. We understand you made much of your own fortune.
Many of us make hundreds or more grafts every year. The more grafts made the more we realize how to improve our speed and technique. In many cases like @Poorwolf and @BlueBerry we do our best with the circumstances we are given.
A few of my grafts last year still put out leaves and ‘took’ in May, so I’ve not given up this year. But, despite better weather and more experience, this year the take rate is down.
The worst percent is displayed where I grafted to seedlings and any failed rootstocks carried forward from last year…most of these had sap and some had leaves at time of grafting.
And G202 rootstock is in the lead with 19 out of 25 definitely having taken.
Seedlings are a tougher group to graft to! Rootstocks that are made from cuttings are very easy to graft but genetically unique seedlings are the grafters biggest challenge!
Yes those are 5x as hard to graft as mm111 or something like that. I have seedling pears that will only accept one type of scion wood which i use an interstem and everything else is grafted to that.
(Must be only TWICE as hard! As I have 40-something percent ‘takes’ on seedlings so far this year!) lol
I also think who I got the scionwood from and how ‘fresh’ it was has affected the odds also.
Some of my “perfect” (I’m a little prejudiced) whip and tongue grafts to G890 failed … and I was disappointed. Have 3 cultivars that 2 for 2 failed. Yet, some cleft grafts where I took match-stick sized little scions and stuck them into a G890 and they are putting out leaves.
It’s interesting…and as you say, clarkinks, a learning experience. Have a good 2019.
Im glad to hear you had that good of take rates. Im not ruling out scionwood sometimes being the issue because at times it has been for me but 99% of the time its not the scionwood unless its visibly dry or visibly pushing green growth. What i suggest is find scionwood that grafted easy or cheat and use rootstock scionwood and graft a chunk to all those hard to graft rootstocks and then graft to that chunk of interstem. You would be surprised how mm111 would graft to those seedlings perfectly. 40% take rate is good for seedlings that just means you found the easy ones to graft. To complicate things further not all pear scions are compatable with ohxf rootstocks the same as not all scions are matches for your standard non seedling rootstocks. When that happens an apple called winter banana is your best friend because nearly everything grafts to that. I worked a lot with stubborn rootstocks and should write a book on it! I have some seedling pears that are a real pain! Those pear seedlings will make the best grafter feel like an amateur. The grafts on those fail 100% of the time. I messed around with that group of pears 5 years developing my own methods before i could graft them. Those rootstocks taught me more about pears than i ever wanted to know. The farmingdale pear as an example had 100% take rate on callery when 4 other types of pears failed. I laughed when i found out there is no farmindale in old home x farmindale rootstocks and that the other parent is bartlett. Anyway good luck and let me know if you need a stick of winter banana for a stubborn apple next year!
Appreciate the information, advice, and offer for 2020.
But, you got me to thinking, I used to keep good records…
and sure enough, I have my records on my grafts last year.
Guess what? 11 out of 16 grafts took to seedlings for me in 2018.
. Again, most seedlings were Antonova.
Red Merylinn, Rhum aus Kirschwarder, Odysso, Kizil Alma 826, Red Devil, Rubaiyat, Blood Delicious, Maggy, a tree I’ll not name, and Carolina Red June apple all took to seedlings last year, and 2 each of Black Oxford and Roxbury Russett did not. (I did get a Black Oxford, cleft grafted to G30).
I have a number of Fuji seedlings I plan to graft to in 2020…see how that goes next year.
This year my 45 percent ‘take’ to seedlings may improve-- as hopefully a few more leaf out still yet.
Sounds like you have a great plan! Another thing is its not to late in my area to regraft with scions of what did take. For example if i have problems and winter banana takes easy and i have 10 extra scions i go graft the dried out ones to wb. Tbudding is a good late season methos of grafting i learned from @fruitnut and he has a tutorial so dont assume you have any failures just yet. You can request tbud wood from ars grin in the summer for your experimental orchard.
If you had Qtip to Magic Marker size it sure was all over the place! Glad you had good results, I’ll spend more practice time this summer and see how it goes next year.
Seems a little peculiar, but I have as good a luck with a “side graft” as with anything.
(This is basically a whip & tongue but with quite a bit smaller scion wood…grafted to the side of the rootstock.)
I just chopped off a healthy G30 rootstock where the graft failed last year…and grafted a bark graft and also a cleft graft to it today. My first attempt to do two types of grafts at the same time on a rootstock (about 3/4 inch in size).
bb
Good luck! I’ll be grafting a few G30 this year once they wake up. I’ll probably try the modified whip&tongue / side graft since the rootstocks are a bit thicker than my scions.
I’ll up that report from 8 days ago! Have 3 more Antonovka that have taken and are growing.
And 2 more G890 and 2 more B118 and 2 more B9 and one ‘Frankentree’ graft can be added…
which brings the seedlings % above .50% and overall up to 72%
. So, I’m still hoping for 80% …but may not get that much.
My G.890 take rate this year is 100% so far, just waiting on my Dabinett and Harrison (still totally dormant but not dessicated) so I can’t say about those yet.
I wish I had seen your post earlier, as it addresses the exact problem I faced! Almost all of my trees had terrible rodent damage this winter (I’m in eastern Ontario, Canada) - lots of snow and the voles had a field day! Girdled from root to 2 feet up - never seen anything like it. That forced me into learning about grafting, finding rootstocks etc. Fortunately I realized early enough to take some scion wood - although I think I probably screwed up and took some two year old wood in some cases when the 1-year was the Q-Tip size that someone else mentioned. I thought it was too skinny to do anything with. I was hoping to graft close to the root, so that the trees can eventually put down their own roots, but came to realize that I had to just go for the best size match - no matter whether it was 2" or 24" above the root. Live and learn I guess!
However, what I’d like to do with some of those high up grafts is to take them off next year and graft the piece of rootstock and the grafted on scion onto a standard rootstock (basically creating an interstem). Can I do that? Can one even order standard rootstock anywhere? How much of the rootstock do you need to create an interstem? I grafted onto B9 and M26. Opinions much appreciated!
Anyhow, something like 93% take rate on apples this year…or about 135 of 145.
Pears, not so good…under 50% I think. Best % was to callery seedlings rathr than OH x F 97.
I still like my results of putting 2 very think (thin…I don’t need spell correct!) scions into a cleft of larger rootstocks…usually both take and in a year, one gets snipped (and possibly offered for scion swaps).