It can be really difficult with grafts like this. They can decline so slowly and stay green long after any chance of living on has gone. You're the last to know. If it were mine I'd shunt it to one side and simply say 'Ok, push in the next couple of weeks...or don't'. I'm in the same situation with two Doug fir grafts, one which finally expired after living for a year and a half off the mother plant. The other simply may or may not push this year. If you want a way of telling, pluck the lowest needle and examine the hole left with a magnifying glass. Is it a healthy green? Is a bead of sap exuded by the next morning? If so then it's very alive.

if you are not space confined.. why not keep learning ...

unless its just pissing you off so much.. that out of sight out of mind is best

ken

Thanks both for the input. I'm not so space confined that I need this one potted graft gone. I'll pick a lower needle and if viable, let it sit some time longer.

Green needles means it's alive, but if it doesn't have a viable bud.....

Beng, that's what I'm worried about! I guess only time will tell.

btw .. is there understock green above ... can you use the mother plant again ...

is that part of why you are asking???

ken

I'm asking because I didn't know if there was a chance of the graft growing again or not (i.e. do I compost the whole thing or continue watering it). I have other P. abies seedlings in better shape for rootstock, if need be.

Hey....if that graft has been there 2years? it has certainly taken......it looks to me that the bud at the top of the scion which tried to grow has been apically dominated by the rootstock. I know it's a scary thing to do but if you don't remove the rootstock above the graft it is unlikely to grow. In the early stages of a side grafted conifer's life the rootstock is the life blood of the scion but after it has healed if you leave any substantial amount of top on your rootstock it'll 'poison' your graft. So my advice: cut it off, seal the stub & it'll probably grow.......leave it like that & it'll linger & then die.

I will take both your advice. In the ground and rootstock will go. Why not, better than composting it!

why haven't you cut off rootstock yet ?

maybe it is using all the energy

just read about keeping understock trimmed on CK blog

ron

Keep the rootstock until the graft breaks bud.

tj

That's true but in this case the graft looks like it broke bud & seems like it was suppressed by the rootstock being left on. The action of the rootstock on the scion in a side graft is an auxin response .....the auxins produced at the terminal buds travel downward & suppress the buds below...this is how a tree regulates its shape. You'll notice that trees with extreme auxin production have uncontrolled shapes like some willows. When the top of a rootstock or any growth inhibits the buds & growth below it is mostly the chemical response & not the distribution of energy or nutrients. This is why lower buds stay in waiting until the above growth gets damaged or removed & then have their chance to grow. An understanding of how this works is fundamental to success in any graft where the scion is placed below the terminal growth such as most budding & side-graft techniques. When side grafting on larger rootstocks it is sometimes a delicate balance in timing between getting the top off in time & having the newly healed scion take over the growth. I used to graft Cedars with a top splice graft to avoid these considerations. Unfortunately this doesn't work well with many conifers. A late friend of mine used to put his conifer side grafts in a hot callus box (which warms the graft only & leaves the roots & top cool) & they'd heal completely in a few weeks & make the whole process very fast & easy.

I had been trimming the understock to keep it's crown from getting any larger - including making sure no leader was present. My assumption was that it was helping to keep the scion alive since it was not pushing any growth. I didn't realize the crown of the understock could inhibit a side graft from pushing growth. There is no more understock left above the graft union as of last night.

:) fingers X'd !!

Cutting the rootstock off will mean the entire root system will rely on 15 needles for everthing. Good idea? No. Transplanting it to the ground right now is also a bad idea. Just make sure the container is not too small. If necessary put the whole root mass untouched in a larger one and pack new mix around it. The least disruption or shock the better.

Well yes that is sound reasoning but in this situation the scion has already tried to grow & has been sitting there for a year like that. The root system has had the proceeds of the top until now & cutting it off may....just may make the scion shoot away.....desperate situations call for desperate measures (sometimes) I think this situation is partly due to the disparity in size of the stock & scion. I know it is normal practice to reduce the top of such a graft gradually but the fact is, it is always best to try & make unions between as nearly the same sized components as possible then it is ok to whip the stock off as soon as the union has healed.....grafting is as much 'feel' as 'knowledge'

I'm a big advocate for leaving nurse branches on the rootstock until the graft has as much canopy as the roots have always relied on. Ideally they are side branches below the graft. I've also had a large and vigourous canopy of a nigra roostock above a graft which caused no detriment, but I cut it off as soon as the graft had sufficient foliage as it may at that point have 'turned against' the graft. I have an abies fraseri that has languished on a rootstock for three years with a reduced canopy above it. The fraserii is putting out fatter new growth this 3rd year of pushing with the same canopy size as always. So yes I hear your points but in practice grafts are not being killed off by rootstock dominance as easily as removing the rootstock will kill the entire plant. I have the experience of that directly: I killed a nice pinus uncinata by removing the rootstock canopy and the ball of new green push promptly expired, it wasn't servicing the roots enough. That was enough to know the other extreme from leaving rootstock branches on too long. The lesser of two evils is the way for me. Treeguy's twig can in no way support the roots. Remove the rootstock foliage and it will be brown in two weeks. Leaving the rootstock on will not be a comparable death sentence for the graft.

Interesting points. Before I read Severnside's recommendation, the rootstock crown was removed completely just above the graft union. Time will tell if I sealed it's fate or if it will be able to produce enough energy with the few remaining needles to start growth again.

treeguy -- oops. Live and learn....

*sheepishly* ....Well I guess it's largely my fault ....tell you what, if it.... "and it will be brown in two weeks" I'll have to shoulder a portion of the blame........if it miraculously grows I expect some credit...... In my defense if the graft were healthy & had live buds I wouldn't have so readily prompted such drastic action. :)

Don't feel you did anything too wrong Pete. It's all a learning curve. Wow I've made some real doozies. Do you graft much? Because the best way now is to graft some more and get it right. I once lost 22 out of 23 grafts in one late summer batch. All I did was plan the next season.

Well yes I do graft much. Though it is some years since I did conifers in large numbers. My worst blunder was one year I was 'dead heading' the Jap Maple failures at dusk without lights & after 10mins realized I'd started at the wrong end & cut 1/2 the successes off below the graft! In the days when I was doing a lot of conifers my late friend Peter Nitschke & I used hot callus boxes (one each) 42m long to heal the grafts. Most conifers were fully healed within 3-4 weeks with the recalcitrant ones taking up to 6. These were from real minis like Mt. St. Catherine's to standards like Greenstead Magnificent cypress (another local broom) & prostrate Junipers up to 5' tall. I was always more into discovery of new ones than commerce which was Peter's thing but it took very little encouragement to get him to take a road trip after new brooms or mutant branches. He was driving in the SE of South Aust once & screeched to a halt, took off over the fence into a pine plantation & climbed a large Monterey pine to cut off a bright golden branch which is arguably still the finest gold form of P. radiata. He had very sharp eyes! One interesting point is that the standards could be done as terminal grafts using hot callusing. Interestingly when I found the Mt. St. Catherines it was mid winter & I had no rootstocks so I bought 500 12" bare root Deodars, potted em up & grafted right on into them! I don't need to say that the percentage of takes was a bit disappointing but it gave me 80 or so to get the cultivar going......

Fascinating. This hot callus box, how does it work? Is it like some warm tubes to raise the temperature? To be able to induce a graft in mid winter - no matter if it's a 1/5 chance - is a great added window of opportunity. And in season it can be used to shorten a graft period?

Well conifer grafting is traditionally done in winter here as are cuttings set. Our summers are very hot & I'd never even considered grafting conifers or taking their cuttings at any time except mid winter. Mind you our winters seldom stay below freezing for more than a few hours at dawn. The hot callus box makes many grafts telescopically faster & more reliable.....the one limitation is heat sensitive species which obect to constant warmth. Ours were 42 meters long because that was the shortest heating cable we could buy then, I presume that is no longer the case with modern electronic technology. If I'm going to give a detailed account of the design I'd better start a dedicated thread to do it as I doubt my ability to do it by 'word pictures' alone :) Basically it is a 2" square ply box with a separate lid. It is laid out (with polystyrene under to insulate from the ground) in a 6m run up, 500mm across & 6m back (depending on space) repeated to cover the 42m. (although in practice the ones I built had the center run wider to accommodate long stocks) Inside the box is a 1" pvc pipe through which the heating cable runs. The ends of the cable have a couple of meters of non-heating conductor to connect to the power. The cable comes out of the ends through sealed holes. Near each end is a riser about 3' high which is open to the atmosphere in order to keep the pipe full & absorb fluctuations in pressure. The power is through a heat controller which has its sensor in the box where the grafts go. The top edges of the box & the edges of the underside of the lid have strips of foam material (5/8"X5/8") glued on which has a strong ability to rebound to its original shape after weeks pressed round a stem! The grafted plant is laid across the box with the graft only inside the box & top (scion or scion & stock top) out one side & stem & roots (or pot) out the other side. The lid is placed on top so the foam seals around the stem each side of the graft. The roots (if bare root) are buried in damp sawdust or similar & sometimes so is the scion or sometimes the scion & the top of the rootstock depending on its resistance to drying. Weights are placed on the lid to ensure a good seal. This set up keeps the graft at a constant temperature 70 -85F depending on what you are grafting, while the top/scion& top & stem below the graft & roots stay at ambient temp. Most conifers are kept at the lower & things like walnuts need the higher temp. Healing is phenomenally fast & things like apples & many deciduous trees are fully healed in 7- 10 days. Difficult to callus species like some conifers & walnuts can take up to 6 weeks. The whole thing is housed protected from above but open to air flow on the sides here but in areas with very freezing winters could be placed in temp regulated structures. It is important to keep the scion & rootstock cold enough to stay dormant while the graft is warm & metabolizing. Long graft unions can be accommodated by placing them diagonally to get the whole thing inside the box. This can take up a lot of room outside the box & make it so you can fit less grafts in. Although hot callus grafting has been around a long time & there are plenty of references & designs around this one is up there with the best. Getting the cable around right angled turns requires bigger pvc elbows with reducing bushes as all the pipe components must be threaded onto the cable & then glued & the corners are problematic. An alternative method is to dispense with the cable & use remotely heated water pumped through the pipe as the heat source. A friend did this successfully & it allows the facility to be made in any length, but I preferred the electric option for finer control. Does this give you an idea of how it's done? It sounds more complicated than it is in practice but once used makes one wonder how any grafts are achieved with out it!!

Sounds like a pretty ingenious way to speed up the graft healing process. I've tried grafting only a couple times and haven't had success yet. I have no access to a climate controlled area, which makes it difficult for late winter grafting.

With regard to the P. torano graft - only time will tell at this point!

Wow it does sound like a great method. Yes it does sound complicated but like you say it is difficult to describe in just words. I will certainly look into this. In essence you want the graft heated and the roostock ambient cold? I will attempt to copy what you suggest or even modify it myself as needed or necessary. Thanks!

Well like I say here it wouldn't even be considered to graft conifers except when dormant, this is why hot callusing works so well. Yes the idea is to warm the graft area only & leave everything else at a temp which keeps it resting. Like all grafts success is best when the carbs are fully stored as in winter dormancy. Of course without the help of the hot callus system many species won't callus & heal well when dormant that's why with grafting other than evergreen conifers perhaps, the ideal is dormant scions (cold stored) onto stocks just breaking dormancy. You'll find most references to hot callus apparatus are to a pipe with slots covered by foam rubber & the like......this is a clumsy method & the box described above is vastly superior. I could make some sketches to clarify the details if I can find a steady hand :) One thing I didn't mention is that we fitted ply ends to each box section drilled to accommodate the pipe & one or two U shaped ply spacers along the length to center & bottom the pipe. The drilled ends for each box section were put loose on the pipes during assembly (takes careful attention to get 2 on each pipe for each box section so 6m pipe @ 3 x 2m box sections needs 2 ends at appropriate places to fit the box section ends considering joins etc) then fixed to the ends of each section so each box could be securely joined to the next end to end. The corners of the pipe system were left exposed lagged & covered with sawdust to prevent heat loss, at the returns a small box section was fitted about 3' long .....I just read this back haha it needs to be read from the perspective of the doddery old man who wrote it for it to be clear!!

Interestingly, when you look up "apical dominance" on Wikipedia, here's what you can learn:

Many conifers show particularly strong apical dominance, strongest of all being in the family Araucariaceae, showing a single erect central trunk with strongly differentiated horizontal branching. Cuttings of Araucariaceae species taken from a side branch will not develop erect growth.Araucaria heterophylla, New Zealand.

. . . . and why one of my fir tree grafts is still having trouble learning which way is up after being in the ground for ~5 years!

Many many years ago I was given a few cutting grown Torreya nucifera struck from laterals. for a few years they grew sideways then one by one found a leader. One is now 30' tall with a strong leader & looks exactly like a seedling. Another case of sideways becoming strongly upright is Sequoia adpressa it is normally sold as a prostrate shrub but invariably finds a leader or a few & becomes a normal shaped tree. I'm sure my Bunya grafted from the lateral will get its bearings & head up eventually. It is already after only 30 odd years looking like making a normal terminal bud ;) I really do think it will eventually make a tree, just needs pointing in the right direction!

I'm hopeful my fir will eventually follow the example of your Torreya!

I could post a pic of the Torreya but I don't know how well it would photograph...it is dominated by an aggressive Box Elder which no one planted or asked to grow there & which has become huge........pesky American weeds!!

I agree, they can be pretty weedy. I have two huge ones in my front yard and many consequent seedlings.

Here are some pics of the Torreya nucifera about 30 years old but 1/2 the size it would be if the monster wasn't growing next to it. I haven't looked at it for years & just noticed that it has lost its leader to the domineering maple. I said "30' tall" but it is more like 20. The block it is on is now owned by my sister & I must ask her if I can chop that part of the Acer which is in top of the Torreya!

This is exactly what the rooted cutting looked like when I got it & it grew like this for 5 or 6 years before forming a leader. Interestingly it did so from its terminal bud after being tied up a stake.....

This is the type of cutting that'd give a proper tree right off!

Beautiful Torreya, thanks for sharing the pictures. I've wanted to add a Torreya to my landscape/collection, but I think only one species is cold hardy enough, and only barely.

I've been staking up my fir graft for the past ~5 years. So far, no independent leader forming.

Here's another old graft still in a pot, an A.angustifolia grafted on Bunya 22 years ago. (Wollemia in background) I've just potted it up from 2gall to 4 gall.......steady as we go.... :)

The graft looks like it was a side graft & is well healed & looks strong! Note the attractive pattern on the angustifolia bark.

Pete, I'd really like to share your hot callus method in the Grafting Group on FB. Can you make a dedicated thread with it in bitesize sections so people can refer to it and maybe make their own? I can copy and paste with you as the source. Unless you want to join the group and take it from there. I think there are a few people that would really benefit from the method.

Well couldn't we start a grafting thread here & then refer them to that? I have a philosophical aversion to ""FB"

Yep, that would be fine.