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Grafting tutorial

15 years ago

hello,

Grafting tutorial has been updated, videos have been added.

Bass

Here is a link that might be useful: Trees of joy grafting tutorial

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Comments (8)

Scott F Smith
15 years ago
Nice videos Bass! A picture is worth 1000 words and a video is worth 1000 pictures.

Even though I have done hundreds of grafts (thousands?) its always good to see someone elses technique. One thing I have been thinking about lately is what shape wedge to put on the scion for a cleft graft. I have found it is easier to make the wedge be concave, so the two sides of the wedge cut are not straight lines but go in a bit. I can't get a long wedge otherwise. Somehow you were getting nice long wedges and I couldn't see exactly what you were doing but my guess is they were not just a straight "V" shape there?

Scott
imred
15 years ago
I liked the video Bass. I have just started grafting this spring and have done about 30 splice and rind grafts. In fact I have watched other videos by you on grafting and found them very useful. I have been grafting plums and apples. I have heard that using these techniques on peaches, nectarines etc. are not very effective. What is your experience?
RED
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Thanks Bob and Floyd, Bob I'll try whatever you can spare. You can PM or e-mail me from my profile and I'll send a money order. I can try dormant and green then under the same conditions. Bob you have a couple other interests of mine PawPaws and Figs. I only lost three figs last year. An Alma, Smith and VDB. I have backups on all but the Alma and I have several sources for it. PawPaws are all selected seedlings from about 5 - 6 sources for good pollination. My grove is still young but I have had flowers for three years. Still had one open flower this morning. Now I just think I need to do some manual pollination to get fruit. Friend of mine in Biloxi did that this year and has one cluster now. Floyd with Persimmons nothing is obvious. I can see where the larger rootstock could supply extra nutrition to the scion wood. I have a friend near me and he is grafting onto in ground native seedlings. I'll pass on your experiences to him also. He will save himself some failures with those tips. I'll keep trying till I get it right. I have a friend in Abbeville LA that once had a 12 n 1 persimmon tree he grafted. I have ordered about 300 Kaki seeds to grow and graft Asian varieties on. I am concerned with Persimmon Decline and using the Kaki is supposed to eliminate that. Thanks Darkman Charles in Pensacola
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Sounds good to me! I don't do an angle cut but I paint it over so no water will get in. This spring I did bark grafts on all my large stocks, its the easiest way on them. I used to do cleft grafts but with bark grafts you can do 5-6 around a large stock and not just one on each side of the cleft. I often leave more than one to grow out, at least in the first year, to get more vigor in the plant quickly. Or do multiple varieties and keep one of each. Scott
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Mark, As far as P. manicata being more heat tolerant species, I don't know, but my experience with it would confirm that. When it comes to grafting Passiflora, there hasn't been a whole lot of experimenting done to my knowledge. So as far as grafting P. membranacea is concerned, I don't know that anyone has tried grafting it. The same goes for interspecies compatibility--there isn't much data (at least to my knowledge) as to what species are graft compatible. You could likely graft a decaloba onto a tacsonia or section passiflora, who knows? So, let's learn and experiment together! We will likely discover that certain species are more suitable for stocks than other species, and as with fruit trees, some stocks may give dwarfing characteristics, resistance to soil born diseases, or better performance for certain soil types. My main desire right now is to find one that doesn't sucker. And yes Karyn, you can multi-graft several varieties on a single stock. I have a some caerulea plants that I trimmed down to three main branches and put a graft on each branch. I actually grafted the same thing on each branch, I was just trying to multiply my chances that one of them would take. Fortunately, they all took, and now I wish I would have grafted different clones onto the same plant for ease of self pollination. And Mark, you could graft in a branch as a pollinator, people often do it with fruit trees. Although, like you guessed, the root stock may outgrow the grafted material. So the only reason you may want to do this if you only had room for one plant. If you had the room, you'd probably be better off to have a separate plant act as pollinator. Here is what I have grafted currently (in various states): P. manicata on P. caerulea P. manicata on P. edulis P. manicata on P. foetida P. mollissima on P. caerulea P. mollissima on P. 'Temptation' hybrid P. 'Zipacon' hybrid on P. 'Temptation' hybrid P. pinnatistipula on P. 'Temptation' hybrid P. actinia on P. 'Temptation' hybrid I haven't had luck with P. incarnata as a root stock. I personally like stocks to be woodier, and incarnata tends to stay herbaceous and die back to the roots in the fall. Why go through the trouble grafting it and have it die back? ~Ethan
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Congrats, daogirl! That's impressive! I hope it continues to heal and that you have success!
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imred
15 years ago
Bass and/or Scott
I have some wild American plums beside the lane to my house. I was going to take them out because they bear little and of poor quality. Can I top work them with Asian or European plums? I have been unable to find anything pertaining to grafting onto American Plum stock
RED
Scott F Smith
15 years ago
I answered your rootstock question on the thread you started for it. I would not even try European plums because they often have delayed incompatibility which is no fun. But asians plums are fair game. Most of the varieties today have some native American plum in the cross and that helps the odds.

Re: peaches, I find the key is the temperature at grafting time. I have been sitting on all my peach and apricot scions waiting for it to warm up to the 70's which is what is needed. Look at the weather forecast for the next week before grafting making sure there are several days in the 70's or low 80's. Also I coat the peach scions in Doc Farwells since they can take awhile to work and you want to keep the scion from drying out. Lastly I wrap aluminum foil on the graft union to keep the temp from getting too hot when the sun is hitting the graft. I also try to put the grafts on the north side for the same reason. Do twice as many grafts with peaches since the number of random misses seems to be higher. I usually put several backup chip buds in random locations which are forced only if the main graft did not take. With these methods I have managed to not lose any of the couple dozen peach varieties I have wanted to graft in the last few years.

Scott
imred
15 years ago
Thanks Scott, I didn't cut any peach scions last winter. I was thinking about trying to bud them this summer.
RED
californian
15 years ago
Nice video. So I take it the time to graft is while the trees are just coming out of dormancy? Some trees grow like weeds around here, like Eucalyptus or Chinese Elms. Can fruit tree twigs be grafted onto them?
bonsaist
Original Author
15 years ago
You can only graft trees into the same species. For examples apples are in the Malus species, you can graft apples on crab apples. Stone fruit such as plums, peaches, etc can be grafted on most Prunus species which is within the same family.
So the answer to your question is no, not unless you know of a fruiting Eucalyptus or fruiting Elm.
brandon7 TN_zone7
15 years ago
Bonsaist,

Awesome video!!!!!! I think it is the clearest I've ever seen on the subject.

BTW, I think you meant genus instead of species in your last post above.

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