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Fruit & Orchards

graft question for Scott or others about J. plums

12 years ago

I was going to e-mail Scott directly but it occurred to me others might benefit from his guidance, if he can offer any, and some of you may also have experience with this issue.

I'm going to try some simple splice grafts on J. plums this year and wondered if they take OK when you graft one year wood onto 2 or even 3-year wood.

It works OK for pears and apples, I assume it wouldn't work for peaches but what's the verdict on J. plums?

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Comments (7)

ramble
12 years ago
My question is whether you graft J plums when buds swell or when green leaves show? Have seen conflicting info.

Same question for sweet cherries.
alan haigh
Original Author
12 years ago
OK, you can hijack my thread. I guess it can handle a couple of questions. My understanding is it depends on the weather- you want to graft stone fruit during warm weather and if a tree starts to grow while it's still cool you should wait.
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Lycheeluva: First let me say I'm no expert on grafting. But I've had more success than failures and so will you before long. I do have nearly 100% success with T budding pome and stone fruit. Variety, ie cultivar, has little effect on grafting or budding success. On the other hand, some species are easier than others because they callus, ie heal, easier. Apples and sweet cherries are both easy to bud or graft. Some species are difficult and require specific techniques. In my experience, these are things like nut trees. You might want to start with T budding. That is easy esp with an easy healer like apples or cherries. But T budding is mostly an in season procedure done when the scion buds mature, ie May thru August. The budwood is also very perishable so hard to order from some distant source. There are many grafting procedures but one or two will work for most things. Both budding and grafting come down to understanding when, where, and how to obtain the scion wood. And then what procedure to use to join scion and rootstock. Read a little and then learn by trying. You'll have success fairly soon. Both budding and grafting are easier with a vigorous rootstock. For T budding you need a vigoruos young tree as the rootstock. When you T bud you don't cut off much top. So if the tree is not vigorous your bud may take but never start growing. With grafting, you often cut back the rootstock more. This provides the vigor needed to get your successful graft to grow. The Fruitnut
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The best place to discuss questions related to grafting fruit trees, IMO, would be the Fruit and Orchards Forum. If you do a search of that forum, you will find many many threads full of information about this topic. To answer your question about whether grafting less-suited scions onto well-suited rootstock, it would depend entirely on the specifics. There is no simple answer to the question. Many rootstocks are chosen primarily for their ability to produce trees well suited to certain soil or environmental conditions hostile to potential scion cultivars. On the other hand, some environmental limitations could not be overcome merely by rootstock selection. Since you mentioned terminology, I'll give you this tip. Use cultivar to describe different named selections of plants typically propagated asexually, and use variety to describe a genetic group of plants containing similar and inheritable traits, that vary from other members of their species, known to come true-to-type when reproduced sexually. In other words, the term variety, technically, is more akin to subspecies than cultivar. Misuse of these terms is very common, and I'm sure I do it quite often myself. It can lead to confusion though, so is best avoided, if possible. Other than that, you sound like a pro.
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ramble
12 years ago
On youtube, for your question, they graft onto the bottom of old trees and onto rootstocks. So, it seems you can graft onto older than 1 year old wood. Now, maybe that's for apples and pears. But they don't say that. Here's a link and you can google various grafting tehniques on youtube yourself

Here is a link that might be useful: cleft grafting I think
Scott F Smith
12 years ago
Hman, I have never heard of any limits on what age of wood to use for any graft. The scions are best as one-year wood but I never heard restrictions on the stock. On older stocks I am usually doing bark or cleft grafts but have also done some wedge grafts which worked fine.

For grafting time I would wait for leaves. You can graft earlier but at about 1" leaves the odds are better.

Scott
alan haigh
Original Author
12 years ago
Scott, I thought you were one of the people who suggested that grafting stone fruit during warm periods was an important part of having a good ratio of success. I know I've heard it from several sources but I've forgotten who they were.
macmanmatty
12 years ago
I have grafted 1 year old plum scion wood on to 1 year old peach and plum trees and gotten good takes I have also grafted 2 or 3 year old plum wood on to 1 year old peach and plum trees and gotten good takes I have then grafted 1 year old wood of plum on to very old peach and plum trees and 2 year old plum wood on to these old trees as well. So Any combo should work But as scott says the key is temperature. Plums like it warm You need between 65 and 80 all most all day get good takes on plums especially when grafting to peaches.
Scott F Smith
12 years ago
Hman, I have only found peaches to be very picky on temps. Japanese plums always seem to work for me. But, I wouldn't graft when temps are too low or too high. Basically highs of 55 to 85 is the range for plums. Don't graft plums or anything else when highs of 90+ are coming, it can fry the grafts. A few days of cold are less problem, the grafts will just sit there. If an unsuspected hot day is coming wrap the grafts in Alu foil with the shiny side out. I wrap all of my peach grafts in alu foil anyway, it helps stabilize the temps and they like stability. Also I paint all my scions with Doc Farwells (a latex paint product) so if they are having trouble taking they will get more of a chance since they will dry out much more slowly. You can get a similar effect by wrapping with parafilm.

In terms of leaf length I mentioned 1" above but I often do my first round at more like 1/2" leaves. I try to be all done by 2" leaves. Earlier and later than this interval will work, but it corresponds to this zone of good temps and is the most reliable time.

Scott

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