Whats your process? Do you buy rootstock and take cuttings from your own trees? I would love to learn to graft, seeing it could save me some money. Sounds like Pears are the easiest to do?

Scott, I think you have a very nice thing going for you.

I've probably done only a dozen grafts this year, but FWIW, here's what's happening:

Pear whip and tongue and clefts all seem to be taking, but a couple, done with "challenged" scions, are iffy at the moment. Pear chips now appear to be appearing ...

Apple cleft and/or W&T taking, one apple chip might be ...

Two W&T's prunes and a chip graft prune all took on tomentosa rootstock- that little feller was set out a week ago and is happy as can be, with several inches new growth on the one remaining scion- I removed the second scion to prevent competition, but I am allowing the chip to stay in place until I'm sure the main stem is happy.

All in all pretty good so far. I'll probably do more chips if I come across the right buds; I want more Macoun apples on my tree, and they don't seem to like the Liberty rootstock. I'm hoping they do better using the Gala as an interstem (the Gala is grafted to the Liberty and is very vigorous). I'd be interested in any advice there.

Thanks again,

Mark

Frank, I collected scions from various places - friends, neighbors, bought a few. I also used various stocks. Many were added to side limbs on existing trees. I use a vase pruning system and I changed "one prong on the vase" over to the new variety. For peaches I grew many of the stocks from seeds - they work great and cost $0. You can grow your own stock of anything but for apples and pears that will give you a full-sized tree which may be too big. In past years I have bought rootstocks, that also works fine.

Pears are the easiest, then plums then apples I would say. You should read up some of the webpages on grafting to figure out the standard things you need to be aware of, such as aligning the cambium.

Mark, it sounds like you have done pretty well. My early grafting years were filled with great success and flaming failure. I once had 100 apple benchgrafts die. I could regraft most that spring with a new order of rootstocks, but the rabbits then nibbled those down. Talk about painful.

Re: your Macoun, I have never noticed incompatibility between any two apple varieties. Everything on anything just takes. Thats not to say it doesn't happen, though.

Scott

Hi again Scott, and thanks for the follow-up.

I had no problem getting the Macoun to take; it wasn't rejected by the rootstock. It's just that it has failed to thrive. Everything else (excepting, perhaps, the Fuji) on the tree has done well, and the Macoun's my wife's favorite, so I really want to see it do well!

I'll try it again. I think the tree has fourteen varieties so far, and pretty soon I'll either call that good or plant another. But truth be told, I've never harvested a significant number of anything but Liberties off of it. I'm hoping this is the year.

Thanks again,

M

I put a plastic bag over each graft and then a paper bag (lunch bag size) over that for shade. I prepare the plastic bag by putting in a little 1:10 bleach solution and shaking it around and letting it drain. I sort of blow into the plastic bag to inflate it and tie it on with stretcchy tape. I cut off one of the bottom corners of the paper bag so I can look in and see progress. I use staples to hold that bag on. When I think the graft has taken, loosen the plastic bag tie and gradually let the leaves get exposed to the outside world.

I started doing the complicated bagging for bark grafts, based on advice from a long-time NAFEX member. Then I discovered it improved my success with whip & tongue grafts too. I only do a few grafts a year and my carpentry skill is pretty poor. So I need all the help I can get and bagging allows me to overcome poor grafting technique. I admire people like Scott who've made the effort to become good at it.

Hi Bruce- sounds like good ideas. I've taken to using plastic bags but hadn't thought of the shade factor. Thanks for the pointer.

I've also started wiping the surfaces down with 70% rubbing alcohol. Can't say whether it has helped, but no sign of problems.

I can relate to the part about "carpentry skill is pretty poor". I struggled with the W&T because it seemed like I had to jam the pieces together pretty violently to get good contact- but they are working out OK so far.

Like you, I admire Scott's skill and appreciate his sharing.

Best to you all,

M

I agree with scott on wrapping tight. I think it helps for the reason stated. Tried bark grafting for the first time using the bark grafting tutorial by Joereal. I got 100% takes on the 4 grafts of green gauge and hollywood.
I had problems with persimmons last year. Hoping for better results this year. two things were done diffrent. First I waited until the stock had leaves 1 inch plus, and made the cuts more than 2 inches long. I made six grafts last week. Will let every one know if that made any diffrence.

Scott, do you wrap the entire scion with multiple layers of parafilm? If so, I imagine that means that the buds have no problem growing through multiple layers.

Also, when you use the Doc Farwell's, is that on top of the parafilm or in place of it? If it is in place of it, what do you use to join the scion to the host?

I experimented with various techniques of wrapping and sealing bark grafts using parafilm, office depot rubberbands, budding rubbers, and doc farwell's.

On some of them I applied Doc Farwell's over the rubberband expecting it to prolong ints life and provide a better seal. That was the worst combination. In pretty much ever case it seemed to speed the degeneration of the rubberband and it broke before the scion took.

Parafilm over rubberband or over parafilm worked much better.

This was all on apples. I managed to hurt my knee before getting most of my intended grafting for the season done. I'm hoping if it continues to heal I'll be able to start grafting again in a week or 2. I hope it isn't too late for my plums. Those are the ones I'm most excited about adding.

It will be painful to cut back the growth from my young plum tree to prep locations for grafting.

Murky, I only wrap the graft area with parafilm. Lots of parafilm would be hard for the bud to get through. I think Farwells over parafilm would also not be good, it makes it hard for the bud to pop. I did that by mistake on one tree so I saw it myself this year. The Farwells just keeps the scion from drying.

Bruce, I think the bagging has the same effect as the Doc Farwells - keep the graft from drying out. It would probably also make it warmer, which would be better in cool weather and worse in hot weather.

To followup on my grafts, the grapes are all looking like duds now, the few that had started to grow died. I need to figure out some new tricks for grape grafting. The persimmons are also mostly not moving. I re-grafted all of them with T-buds today as backups since it is not looking super good on the main grafts.

Scott

Scott,

I think Lon Rombaugh in his book "the Grape Grower" recommends grafting dormant grape scions to green growth on the host. Have you tried that or have any thoughts on it?

I have some cuttings, some of which I've rooted indoors under lights and heat and some still dormant. I'm now debating whether I should try dormant to green, green to green, or just plant the rooted ones and call it a day.

My long-time source for those red grafting/budding rubbers has gone out of business, and I never got around to searching out more, so I've been using Office Depot rubber bands - but they don't hold up well to the UV light exposure, and break down way too fast - we're talking a few days, as opposed to several weeks - so, I've had to start overwrapping the graft unions with aluminum foil to provide some protection against UV degradation.
So...my procedure, whether doing a bark graft or 3/4-flap is, make the graft placement, overwrap with Parafilm. Wrap with rubber band, overwrap the graft and scion with another layer of Parafilm, then wrap the graft union with aluminum foil, so that the rubber band is not exposed to sunlight.

Pecan/hickory/walnut grafts are just now beginning to open buds - some of the grafts have been in place for two to three weeks.
Persimmons are budding out nicely a week to ten days out from grafting. (Thanks again for those Wye scions, Scott!) You just gotta maintain your diligence about keeping rootstock shoots rubbed off - I check mine at least every other day.
Just did my pears and apples last weekend, haven't looked, but I doubt they've done much yet.
Only apples I did this year were a few edible crabs - scions were really small - and, I did bark grafts, wrapped with Parafilm and masking tape - no rubbers. My mentor, Ed, who ran an orchard and fruit tree nursery for decades, indicated that he never used anything to wrap his apple/pear grafts other than masking tape - they callus in so rapidly that you evidently don't need much more in the way of support, and the masking tape breaks down all on its own, with no real danger of girdling the graft. I still like to use some Parafilm on 'em just to make sure the scion doesn't dessicate before it calluses in.

Lucky, I wish I knew what your trick on the persimmons was. I grafted to side shoots on a couple trees and none of them took. These shoots are 3' or so long and I rubbed off every bud along the way. I also had a nice mature rootstock that I grafted to, putting the grafts maybe 2' off the ground, and again no takes so far. You are probably getting a bit tighter wrap with your rubber band so maybe that is a factor.

Murky, I tried green grafts on grapes last year and didn't have much luck. The procedure I followed is a common one in California vineyards so I'm not sure why I can't get it to work. I do think if I had grafted in warmer weather and kept the scions from drying out I would have had better luck. Maybe I'll try a couple chip buds in this warmer weather and see if any of them take.

Scott

I read this about grafting grapes and I'll post a bit of it in case you should find it useful. Mind, I have no experience in grapes and I am not saying they are right or wrong!

It's from the NebGuide and here's the link:

http://elkhorn.unl.edu/epublic/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=229

Here's the quote: "Chip budding in late summer (August through September) with current growing season's "resting" mature buds give excellent results when the roostocks' cambiums are not active (Example: grapes)."

FWIW.

Good luck,

M

Sometimes a graft "takes" just enough to keep the scion green and push out a little growth, but fails to thrive because it ony "took" on a very small portion of the contact area.

Mark, I have used that method with success but you need budwood which is hard to get for new varieties. I will probably try that for some of the varieties that I already have buds for this August. Linked below is the guide I more or less followed this spring, it is very detailed. I can't think of anything they did that I didn't do, other than the fact that I grafted higher up.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Oregon State grape topworking guide

Scott,

For the dormant to green grafting with grapes or kiwifruit, it is very important that temperatures be warm. I am just now getting ready to make my grafts on grapes, and I just did some on some kiwi. For my area, I use the same guideline for dormant to green grafting that I use for planting tomatos-wait until after Mother's Day when soil temps are higher and highs are typically above 75 F and nights are around 60 F minimum. Of course, the weather can do unexpected things, as it was 45 F this morning, and may be close to 40 F tonight. Because of the cool weather, I'm waiting until Sunday to graft the grapes (and plant the tomatos).

~kiwinut

I wrap grafts with parafilm and paint a ring of Farwells around the top & bottom to hold everything together. What I think my bagging does is to minimize transpiration as buds leaf out. That gives even more time for the cambium to align itself after my clumsy carving & joining. Otherwise the opening leaves demand more water than my poorly aligned grafts can transmit.

..Following up on this thread, my persimmons are finally leafing out. It is surprising how long they took. I am guessing it was also not hot enough for them, we had a very cool period there compared to the norm. Someone told me they prefer 75-85F for callousing. The jujubes all are growing as well but again with a big delay. The figs didn't take; I think they may have dried out, they were not protected at all. The grapes are all toast. I then did some chip buds on them which should be about ready to force now. I should have also green grafted some but never got around to it. Here is the summary of estimated best temperatures:

apples - cool but they are somewhat flexible (50-75)
peaches, apricots, cherries - mild is important (60-80)
grapes, kiwis, persimmons, jujubes(?) - warmth is needed (75-85)

pears, plums - not picky
pawpaws, figs - ?

Scott

scott-

No grafting, but my Reliance grape finally opened a bud today... Its been in the ground for a solid month+.

I tried grafting kiwi purpurea last weekend. We'll see how it goes (I grafted onto green wood that had started to darken and stiffen a little).

I should take pictures so I can refer back to if it works or if it fails. Maybe I'll get out to do that tomorrow evening.

~Chills

Scott,

When are you going to offer tours of your orchard/garden? I just looked at your member page and the picture is amazing! The list is even more amazing because of the list of fruit trees you have.

I'd love to see your setup, just to admire it.

Joe, just drop me an email if you want to visit. I don't feel like the orchard is quite "ready" yet in that many things are not yet producing, but I do have a ton of stuff producing this year. One of these years I hope to offer tours to my kids school etc. Recently I have been admiring my baby kiwis, persimmons and pawpaws, its my first year for getting fruit off of any of them. Baby chinensis kiwis are the most beautiful sight, these little snow-white balls of fuzz.

By the way while I am posting on this thread, I looked at my grape chip buds last night and all were failures :-(

Scott