Congrats, Mike! It sure feels good to see those little green heads doesn't it?

One thing I wonder may be causing you problems is the competition from the other shoots (based on your comment about finding them hard to see). Always make sure to graft to a dominant position and remove all the sprouts on the limb you are grafting to. Maybe you did fine on this but the remark about having trouble finding them made me wonder.

Scott

I did not remove the sprouts- I had been following this advice "you may allow some shoot growth from below the graft, but do not permit this growth to shade the scion growth. After the first season, all growth should be cut off, except that of the graft." from the url in this post.

Do most recommend removing ALL other shoots? I'll do it tonight if that's the case.

Here is a link that might be useful: the advice link I used

It varies a lot from fruit to fruit; on apples you need to remove or tip anything that is below it that is vigorous. If its more than 2' below thats usually OK, but even on those I would tip long shoots so they are not competing. For the first 2' below the graft I always strip it clean. Every situation is a little different, it also depends on what the adjacent scaffolds are like and how high the graft is in the tree overall. Lower grafts require a lot of work to get to take.

Scott

i have 1 apple tree that came up from seed a few years ago that i just stuck all the remaining scion wood on after i got all my rootstocks done it now has about 15 different varieties growing on it as they all took. i will do the same thing next year to it

So Pata, how long were the grafts there before they came to life? I'd like to think those bud grafts I slapped on apple trees yesterday had a chance to come back from the dead....

ive had grafts take 6 weeks or longer to even show signs of being alive

Here's a story I've told here before but it is amazing enough to repeat. I had a graft fail to sprout for an entire season, and the scion wood survived that and the following winter to sprout leaves a year late!

Now it's been another year gone by and the graft is healthy with some flowers. The wood was a pretty thick piece of Hudson's Golden Gem (apple). No parafilm to reduce evaporation either- just its own bark with some graft putty on the tip.

I believe that all scion wood is not equal and towards the base of an annual shoot the buds are not as well formed and slower to come out of dormancy. I now discard the lower wood of such shoots unless the buds look prominent. Maybe this miracle graft was from wood at the base of a shoot.

I have been waiting patiently as well for my grafts to emerge. Although I grafted onto bare root rootstock that I purchased from Cummins. It appears all 10 of the grafts will take, however they are extremely slow with none of the scions completely leafed out. One side note, I took the extra smaller scions and potted them directly using rooting hormone and these are farther along than my grafts! Will these sticks assume the characteristics of the original rootstock they were taken from? Will they survive?

Tuffa, did you look for roots on those guys? I got similarly excited many years ago and pulled them for a look .. no roots! Apples are very hard to root.

Grafts on just purchased young rootstock are very slow to start. I don't do that anymore unless I am desperate. Think ahead a few years and get more rootstock than you need - they are cheaper when purchased in quantity as well. They can be grown very close together when they are young, or temporarily put them between young trees.

Scott

Congrats! My plum scions (2 of 3) are active. I like to graft.

Dax

Since this now seems to be a general grafting thread, I've got a question. I grafted some Wickson crab scion to the stump of the same tree which had been killed by a buck rub. I actually did two bark grafts, but only one has leafed out and has a few inches of growth. The stump is about an inch in diameter, so there is a pretty big "wound" at the site of the graft. It is still covered by parafilm. Should I do anything to that area? Leave the parafilm on? Remove the parafilm and coat the cut surface with something?

Chuck

@ koko- I did my grafts March 22, so they took almost two full months (8 weeks) to show the first sign of life. Not the miracle grafts harvestman saw (I would have never imagined that), but longer than I thought it would take. I figured they would leaf out at the same time as the rest of the tree, but this was clearly not the case.

I'm glad this topic was posted. I topworked 4 trees with about 12 or so saddle grafts (rubber bands/parafilm) a little over a month ago, and there have been no signs of life. I didn't strip below the scions, but it sounds like I should have. I did trim the end of two of the grafts the other day just so I could see if there was any green wood inside... The wood was greenish with a little beige, unlike the beige of the original scion cut. Anyway, it sounds like I need to give these grafts more time. Thanks guys,
-Glenn

Chuck, I'd cover that wound up with anything that would slow evaporation- for me that would be grafting putty. I think the graft will have to grow a bit to develop an independent cambium completely walled off from the wound- just guessing though.

On another subject, most varieties of apples don't root, but some have root primordia forming all along their wood and I hear such types root very easily. N. Spy often has this as do some strains of Red Delicious. Using N. Spy to create self rooted trees was even discussed here by a man involved in an NGO project about helping small farmers in the African tropics to grow apples as a cash crop.

Scott's quite right though, odds are high that the shoots are growing from stored energy and water in the wood alone. It happens to lots of wood I leave in the bag but leave out of the fridge. It also happens when I use fresh-cut 2-year uprights for garden stakes.

Pruned back all the competing shoots this evening in the rain. I could not go 2' back, as this is a very young tree and no branch save the main is 2' long. I got them back 6" or so, and made sure they had full sun.

We'll see.

That was fun, I enjoy grafting now, and it's nice to know that if my Honeycrisp doesn't pan out I can turn it into something else in short order.

Just a note pata,
depending on your local disease pressure I believe any pruning in the rain is considered a bad idea. My understanding is the wet conditions, and an open wound make bacterial infection more likely..like fireblight or canker....this is not to say I haven't done the same....but i have read that it is a frowned upon practice.

Hello

This thread is old but maybe someone is still there. I grafted 10 sweet cherry scions to colt rootstock bare root trees and
planted them. I left some existing buds on the rootstock thinking I can bud graft in the fall and still have success if at least one of the 10 saddle grafts are successful. ( my rootstock was much larger diameter than my scions). Weather was wild this spring (several frosts down to low 20's after I planted them) but did not seem to kill anything only slowed it down. Buds on all 10 trees turned green and in about a 4 week period I have leaves on two of the new grafts. These 2 have no leaves on rootstock. The other 8 the buds have turned back red and leaves grow good on the rootstock however the scion wood is still green. This morning I cut the buds out supporting leaves on the rootstock and painted with wound dressing on 3 of the 8 to try to force life to be directed to the scion. I also bagged 7 of the 8. Do any of you have experience with this situation and can give me advice?

Kansas,

Thanks for bringing back this old thread. This April was the first time I tried my hand on grafting. I am glad to read that a graft may take a long time to take esp. for a rookie grafter like me.

I grafted Korean Giant and 20th Century to a Shinko (all Asian pears) on 4/6. The first graft showed sign of life around 5/16. That's 6 weeks!! Now, 2 more grafts took. The other two look like they will, too. Whew!!!

I hope someone with grafting experience will help you out.

I have a graft on my apple that took last year, and then died, failing to come back this spring. I didn't get around to removing it, and now I see tiny, tiny signs of life from the center of the "dead" bud. Not the first so-called dead bud I've seen break a year late either: last year I had a few, too.

I just wanted to thank everyone on the forum for all the grafting tips.For years I tried to graft, no good.Finally, after I started reading all the advice and help on the forum this year all but 1 of my grafts took thanks again. I did apples,pears and plums

I agree with Scott that grafting on just-purchased rootstock may be less successful than grafting on older, well-established rootstock. I made notes last season on this observation.

My low-tech grafting method involves: taping graft with small piece of masking tape, followed by tight wrap with bread bag strips. Over this is tied a sandwich bag (or larger clear plastic bag) "greenhouse." As soon as leaves emerge on the graft, I pierce the greenhouse bag a little. As graft grows, remove the bag entirely. I usually leave the tight, bread-bag wrap all season.

Another thing I've observed: abundant rain or watering after grafting will result in larger percent successes. Last year I had 100% and am nearing that this year: (two grafts on this-year's rootstock have not started yet.)

I would also think it would be less strain if the tree was already established instead of bare root but I had only one window to get these scions and I had no established cherry trees.

I watered the roots in on the trees when I planted and have deep watered once but the ground has stayed wet enough.

I use cpvc pipe to water and cut a 10 ft piece into 4 30 inch + or -. Then I jet it into the ground close to the tree (hold garden hose with a valve on the end tight on pipe and force enough water through it to allow inserting it into the ground while keeping pipe open). Then to water I use a 5 gallon bucket and start a siphon into the embedded pipe. Usually in 2 hours all of the water is under ground.

All trees leaved but only two above the graft so far but grafts are all still green.

The tree that looked best after 3 or 4 weeks (I uploaded a photo of it taken at that time) did not leaf but the buds have lost their green color and are red the same color as the top bud in that photo. It was 2 trees that did not look so good that produced leaves above the graft.

Here is a rind graft I did earlier this year.

{{gwi:93950}}

Here is another graft, just taking off...
{{gwi:93951}}

I am posting a later photo of the graft I posted above. It budded so nice at 3 weeks but I think because of a combination of using a bare root tree and leaving existing buds that after budding all the power was directed to the existing buds. I stripped all existing leafed out buds from the rootstock May 25 but it was too late and the scion continued dying.

Bagging is not an option for me because my wife thought the bags were not good for the trees and the second night I returned from work my bags had all mysteriously disappeared.

However one tree I tried to bag did produce leaves on the scion. I have no reason to believe the bags were a determining factor since they were on for such a short time. I am also posting a photo of it.

I now have 3 successful grafts out of 10 so my original strain is saved. When I bought the rootstock I was hoping for 1. This fall I will take from these trees and bud graft back to the other 7 as well as 10 more I just bought and potted.

I grafted and planted this tree mid april. It started leafing after May 26.

Derek your grafts look like they are going to go. Great!

Fyi, for those who have difficulty getting apple cuttings to root, I'm having some good success with rooting apple cuttings using dwc method. Just fill a container with water, add a bubbler, put some root hormone on the apple cutting and stick the wood in and wait. I add a bit of miracle grow to the water and also added a 15 watt heater. With both additions, I'm seeing root tips pop out all over the submerged part of the cuttings. This was originally an experiment on some apple cuttings that I don't plan on using but now that I'm seeing true success, I'll be taking some cuttings from a granny smith at a friends house and rooting those in a few days. I'm going to try avocado next. Fingers crossed on the avocado. Though it may just be wishful thinking =P

When do you take the cuttings, dormant, or leafed out?

If you're rooting them with the dwc hydro method then I'm not sure if it matters.

I am in the dark, this is the first time I have heard of the dwc hydro method

Deep water culture. Basically a fish tank. Plant roots or in this case stem sits in water with an air stone. Plant shouldn't rot due to the oxygen in the water. Key word, shouldn't. They do sometimes. Ideally the stem won't be in the water and only the popping bubbles should be splashing on the stem.

check out the marijuana forums online. Best place for Dwc info.

Also so nutrients are useless when rooting. In fact counter productive.

I would try the aero cloning method also. It generally has higher success rates.

My setup is actually a rooting and recovery tank. I pulled a bunch of strawberry plants that were weak from overcrowding and exposure and gave them some time to recoup out in a moist environment.

So far, they've done well and kept their leaves which is why I actually added the MC. What I did se for the rooting aspect was a few drops of super thrive.

I also pull my clones when they were leafed out and didn't want to loose leaves that I had established already.

Btw, why are nutes counter productive in rooting with dwc? I can imagine why, but I'd rather ask.

Also aeroponics will run you at least $50 bucks to start compared to $7 for DWC, it's your choice. You can prevent bacteria in a DWC setup by adding colloidal silver to the water. Use the metallic form of CS, the clear stuff is ionic silver and is a salt which could toxify the water.

It depends on what your doing. If you want to root a couple cuttings then the expense of building the aero might not be worth it.

but if you want to keep rooting many things then the aero is totally worth it.

and the best way to prevent bacteria in Dwc in my extensive experience (4 years of growing pot, 24 plants at a time for 2 months each and 6 times a year) is using a black bucket, black lid, no nutrients besides rooting hormone until rooted, and keep temps down below 70, preferably 67.

How many weeks is typical for a spring g graft to leaf out? I am in zone 6 near Boston and grafted 11 varieties on G202 rootstock already in the ground in April when leaves were mouse ears. Its end of May and only 1 has leafed out. I've done some grafting w goodsuccess in past. But don't remember it taking quitethis long.

Usually I see pushing from around 2 to 3 weeks, if you don't see anything after 4 to 5 weeks then most likely it didn't take.

Just a quick update - 3 more grafts pushed this week (8 weeks from "surgery") so I am hopeful that a few more will pop in the next week or two. Last time I did this I don't remember it taking more than a month to take, but that was 2 years ago. I am in Zone 6 Boston and top worked 5 small g202 rootstocks (the rootstocks were planted in the ground a year and a half ago).

Mine did a weird thing. They began to leaf out after a few weeks, but weren't particularly vigorous. Then, the initial leaves died, and I thought they had died. About a week later, a new part leafed out, and these new ones are very vigorous, and growing rapidly.