Best grafting method for small apple seedling?
edweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
9 years ago
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2010champsbcs
9 years agoRelated Discussions
best timing and methods for grafting mulberry?
Comments (13)Cousin Floyd: I just pruned away some unwanted twigs/branches on an IL Everbearing tree (bearer of only very small berries) before going back outside to topwork it with 3 other varieties. Because the tree is actively growing now and forming leaves and berries, the sap is oozing out of the cut branches....good for the scions that will be thirsty for that sap starting this afternoon. .....Flooding a graft with EXCESS sap, such as when doing cleft grafts on muscadine vines, is a problem. The pressured clear sap ends up dripping/squirting through the taped graft for many days and interferes with healing. On those, I have done strategic notching on the upstream r/s vine to divert some of the flow until the graft area stops dripping from the oversupply. When the notches are "deep enough but not too deep", dripping occurs at the notches rather than through the graft tape further downstream....See MoreWhen to graft apples
Comments (13)The reason I found out early works well is that I've had clients to prune that were far away and also wanted me to do some grafts. I ended up doing both at the same time, some times when the trees were a week from even showing signs of growth. These early grafts have done better every time than grafts done a couple weeks later. The closer the grafts leaf out to the rest of the tree the more growth they get during the tree's surge. Growth after the surge is much slower. This has been my experience comparatively and I wonder about others on this forum. Frost isn't likely to be a problem because once the tree begins to leaf out it rarely gets cold enough to damage leaf buds or small leaves. Flower buds are more delicate. I used to think that the grafts healed from cells generated by the tree and the idea was for the graft to leaf out after enough of this healing took place to support growth with adequate water. Therefore you'd want the tree well ahead of the graft. Now I think that the cells are generated from the graft itself- at least some of them and that everything happens as the graft starts to grow. But this is just speculation- anyone got any research on it?...See Morewhen to graft onto seedlings in the field?
Comments (8)I'm only a novice at grafting, but here is what I have learned thus far. Last year I was so excited that I grafted onto my apple trees in late February / early March. Way too early here in Wisconsin. Two out of three of my scions died, while one of them did take but most of the buds on it died. No doubt there was a cold snap or two, and/or the scions dried out before the sap started running. This year, I have used growing degree-days (GDD) to figure out when to graft. Based on Wikipedia, apple trees typically bloom after at least 80 GDD Fahrenheit, base 50 F (or 50 GDD Celsius, base 10 C). You can look up the GDDs for other plants besides apples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing-degree_day. Based on this data, I actually wanted to take advantage of some of the growth that occurs prior to bloom at 80 GDD. So I'm experimenting by having waited until half that, or 40 GDD Fahrenheit, before grafting. We just hit 40 GDD here in my town in the past few days. I've got about half my scions grafted so far in the past three days. The buds are swelling with green tips on all of my trees right now, so I think this is far better timing than like I did last year where I grafted while the trees were still dormant. Also, I have heard it said from a very experienced orchardist that the best time to graft is when you see the first dandelions. Well, just three days ago I spotted several dozen dandelions in a small patch about two blocks away from my house, so now I feel more confident than ever that this is the right timing in my area. I might logically conclude that it is likely safe for anyone to graft after approximately 40-50 GDD. This applies mostly to apple trees but I would guess it could probably apply to most any tree. You can find out the current GDD in your area at http://www.weather.com/outdoors/agriculture/growing-degree-days. Simply input your zip code, base temperature 50 F, start date January 1, end date today (or whenever), and it will spit out the GDD. Of course, I won't know my success rate for a couple months yet, but I think my theories as substantiated by an experienced orchardist should be fairly close to the mark. If you don't trust my theories, you could wait until 60 or 80 GDD, as by then the sap is most certainly flowing and you should have no trouble at all getting your grafts to take, as leafing and bloom will be in progress by that point for most types of trees....See MoreWhat is your favorite grafting tape or method?
Comments (35)Similar to Greyphase, I'm fairly new to grafting (2nd year) and have had good success with cleft grafts. Last year I had 58% (11/19) success grafting onto established apple tree. This year, I've improved to 83% (29/35), which will hopefully go higher, as some of the grafts are pretty recent. The main reason I haven't used the Splice and Whip and Tongue grafts is that when I tried to practice it with my prunings, I kept butchering it. I order most of my scionwood, so there is only so much I can waste before I get no graft. This year I've made over 100 grafts (mostly apples and pears, but I've also done some peaches, plums, mulberry, grapes, and persimmons). I only screwed up about 5 cleft grafts so badly that I wasted wood. In most of those, I was able to move up a bit on the scion and reduce the number of buds a bit (usually from 3 to 2). As Harvestman noted, cleft can be useful when you are working with mismatched sizes. About a third of my apple grafts this year are double-cleft grafts, where I used 2 smaller scions, in one graft. It is time-consuming, but I think all my note-taking uses just as much time. I've actually cut back on it, as when first started, I actually recorded the scion width (in mm), length, number of buds, etc, for each graft. Just before I grafted the peaches, I watched a video on grafting Mangoes, where they used a side-graft. It looked interesting and I figured that I could shave a bit of bark off and tie things straight. So, I tried it 3 times with the peaches and at least two are greening up. It was only 2 weeks ago, so I have hope for some of the others. Of the cleft-grafted peaches, at least 2 of the 4 also took. For next year, I think I'll need to look into some double-bladed pruners. I bet I could make more even cuts with that, than with a knife. While some of my cleft grafts from last year have grown only a little, I had others which put on 3+ feet of growth. In the below pic (currently a 20 variety tree), you can see 2-3 branches which I've recently tied down. They Ross Nonpareil and Holstein grafts from last spring....See Morecurtis
9 years agoedweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
9 years agomarknmt
9 years agoedweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
9 years ago
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