Graft Progress Report. New Grafts and Some Old Ones. 4.16.17

European Plum Yakima, Whip/Tongue. One Month.  4.16.27

Here are some of my grafts from late winter and from years before.  There are too many to picture them all.

The European pears here are on what was a new bare-root multigraft.  That may not give them the best start, but at least the buds remain viable after one month and are swelling.  Yellow Egg already had swelling buds, which may be why the new growths appear damaged.  It's wait and see to see if they grow.

European Plum Yellow Egg, Whip/Tongue. One Month.  4.16.27

Asian Pear Chojuro One Month.  4.16.17

 I think Asian and European pears are really easy  The grafts here are added to a tree of the Asian x European pear hybrid, "Maxie".  All but the Chojuro are from my own trees.  The Chojuro was from Home Orchard Society scion exchange last month.  The wrapping is different because I experimented with melted candle wax.  I think plastic strips or parafilm are probably easier to work with but they are all OK for the graft.

The Nijiseiki was from last year and is on a Hosui Asian pear.  It took and grew nicely.

The older grafts are examples of how they look after a few years.  With my plum and apple grafts, most of the graft sites are no longer easy to identify.  They merged together almost seamlessly.

Asian Pear Hosui.  Two Month.  4.16.17

Asian Pear Hamese.  Two Month.  4.16.17

Asian Pear Nijiseiki.  One Year.  4.16.17

 Chocolate persimmon grew about 3 inches last year.  Some species grow rapidly and long, and others take their time.  This year, I suspect it will grow the same as the stock tree, a Saijo persimmon.

Asian Pear Shinseiki.  Cleft Graft.  4 years.  4.16.17

The ginkgo grafts barely grew last year when I grafted them, but the buds remained healthy looking.  The understock did grow new branches.  This winter, I pruned off those new branches.  The first one has bud damage - slugs?  rabbits? voles? but the second one is looking OK.  These are as exciting as any, because they mean that I can keep the ginkgo tree, in a sense, that I grew from seeds that my Dad collected almost 20 years ago.  That tree is around 25 feet tall, so obviously I can't transplant it.  

Unknown European Pear on Asian Pear.  4 Years.  Whip/Tongue.  4.16.17

Chocolate Persimmon.  Whip Tongue.  One Year.  4.16.17

Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling.  One Year.  4.16.17

Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling.  One Year.  4.16.17

Apple Grafting. 3.14Not a p.15

Materials for grafting.  3.14.15

First cut, with pruners, to approximate size.  3.14.15

 For Pi day- 3.14.15 -  I grafted a little apple tree.  To begin life for a pie. 

This scion came from an aged apple tree that hangs over my back fence.  I do not know the variety.  It must be 55 years old - it looks it.  Maybe older. The tree gets no pruning, no spray, and no thinning.  As a result, the apples are lumpy and small and wormy.  The few that escape that fate are tasty.  It may be a while before the Fedco scion arrives - if ever.  I have one M27 - minidwarf - rootstock left over from last year, so decided to construct a new little tree, from scion, taken from a branch, from that apple tree.  Once in my hands, it will be pruned, and apples will be pampered, so maybe will be bigger, and not lumpy or wormy.  That is the plan.

This time, instead of polyethylene strips, I used parafilm.  It's easy to buy through Amazon.  I don't know that parafilm is any better than polyethylene.  If no strips are available, it's easy to cut strips from plastic food bags, which is free and recycled and easy.

Parafilm does make a good air-tight-looking seal.  I don't know if it stretches quite as tight.  Maybe.

The rootstock was larger diameter than the scion.  As long as the cambium matches on one side, the graft should take, and fill in the other side.  Apple grafts are pretty forgiving.

Second cut, with knife, for whip matching.  3.14.15

Cutting the tongue.  3.14.15

Fitting the graft together.  3.14.15

 Forgot to use macro setting for first few photos.  The rest are more clear.

I tightened the parafilm so the bent cut edges matched.  I did not draw out a long tail on the ends this time.  Last year when I did that, they curled away from the graft and needed to be cut off.  The church window that remains will fill in, on its own.

On one side due to size mis-match.  3.14.15

It's OK if it doesn't take.  Prior experience tells me it might.

Meanwhile, the whip-and-tongue grafts I did on one-year-old columnar trees a couple of weeks ago, have swelling terminal buds.  That's better than dead terminal buds.   If they take, the bottom branches will have red apples, the next ones up will have yellow apples.  If next year is good, a third tier of another red could be added.  That would make for a couple of unusual trees.

Wrapped with parafilm.  3.14.15

Bud grafting. Progress Report. 6.21.14

Shiro Plum Bud Graft at 3 weeks.  6.21.14

Shiro Plum Bud Graft on Older Wood, at 3 weeks.  6.21.14

Hollywood Plum Bud Graft at 3 weeks.  6.21.14

These are some of the plum bud T-grafts at 3 weeks.  I read they should be unwrapped at 2 to 3 weeks, so I did.

The Shiro graft on new wood looks very good.  Still green, plump.  So I'm confident it took.  The bud portion also looks viable.  I pruned the branch back some more, about 6 inches above the bud graft.

The Shiro graft on older wig - many 3 years old - is less  green looking, but maybe OK.  I think the younger wood is much better, when there is a choice.

The Hollywood graft is burgundy, so harder to see if it is alive or not.  I think is it alive.

The second batch of bud T-grafts look OK.

I think I'll wait for July or August before grafting more.

Grafting Followup. 4.25.14

Apple Graft at 2 months.

 Following up on grafts from late Ferbruary.

Deer browsed one of the Asian pear trees, including a nicely growing graft.  *#&$^%$ Deer.

The apple graft is Jonagold.  The rootstock is a sucker that sprouted from roots of an apple  tree that I cut down.  That tree never bore and was susceptible to fireblight, and too vigorous.  I thought it was dead, but now a few years later there are sprouts from the rootstock.  So I grafted a couple.  I removed the wrap today.  It's not clear when to remove.  Too late and the wrap girdles the tree.  Too early and it might not be healed.

This was growing nicely so I thought it might be healed.  Lucky guess, it is.  Nicely healed whip and tongue graft.  Happy.

This is much better than a cleft graft, which leaves exposed open wounds.

Lilac Graft at 2 months.

Not all of the lilacs took.  This one did.  They are in a hard to reach spot.  This is the best photo I could make.  At least this one is growing.  A couple others are in the "maybe" category.