Comments on: Grafting in my Small Kitchen Garden

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:06:16 +0000

I’ve just begun reading about grafting and became very excited about the possibility of making use of some ridiculous maple tree root systems… but the more I read the more it sounds like you need related species… I imagine a surgeon wouldn’t give a chimpanzee’s kidney for a human transplant…but I have to ask if anyone’s ever heard of or succeeded in grafting very dissimilar species… like beyond genus, family, or order even?
(it’d be sweet to frankenstein grape vines into the crazy old maple!)
Thanks, and I look forward to any comments and/or suggested literature.

By: Daniel Gasteiger

Daniel Gasteiger — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:50:38 +0000

Nick: You can make this type of graft as long as your apple trees are dormant. For me, this means I can graft until mid-to-late March… I tend to wait until late winter so my hands don’t freeze; we get many days above freezing in early March.

You can cut scions as soon as the trees are dormant, and as long as you keep them from drying out or warming up, they should stay viable through the entire winter. Again: I like to harvest scions immediately before making the grafts. It works well to harvest scions from branches I remove while pruning. So, I typically prune and graft over a two-to-three week period starting near the end of February.

If you’re doing a science fair project for school, be aware that your graft(s) may not show signs of life until late May. In their first season they can take a lot longer to start growing than terminal buds on native branches.

By: Nick Eberly

Nick Eberly — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:04:00 +0000

I would like to graft a tree for a Science Fair project. I have a red delicious and I would like to graft a green apple scion onto it. When should I get the scion from the green apple? Should I put the scion directly into the red apple?

By: Danny Pritchett

Danny Pritchett — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:32:44 +0000

I love seeing the many different methods of grafting and how others accomplish the task. As you mentioned, it isn’t hard. My grafting tools for my last graft was a 1/4lb of Parrafin wax heated in a babyfood jar in a pot of water, on a kerosene heater. My knife was just a butcher knife and a roll of electrical tape to tap it into the trunk to split it. I was only grafting peach seedlings. My grafts were done with this knife for cutting the scion woods at an angle. I had the scions in the refrigerator where I had cut them a few days previously. I wrapped the cuts with the electrical tape snugly and covered it with wax with a paint brush. Hope my first 4 grafts take so I no longer have to hire others. I have tried the utility knife, just couldnt find it when the time arose. Thanks for the video. I just got into gardening a few years ago. I created a small greenhouse and got into any plants that are fun and easy to grow. Its just something that was originally started that my grandparents and I could do together, here today its all me, they abandoned ship because of the time it takes to take care of the many tasks. But I love it.

By: admin

admin — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:40:15 +0000

Yes, you can repair an apple tree’s leader with a graft… or with multiple grafts. You can do this any time while the tree is dormant, but I prefer to wait until late winter… and not for any scientifically-proven reason. My sensibility is that grafting early gives a scion more time to shift after you set it than it has if you graft later (90 days for a bird to alight on it seems riskier than 10 days, for example). So, things should work if you graft in November, but my choice would be to wait until early March.

As far as the diameter of the stock? There’s no maximum diameter, however for a larger branch (or stump in this case), you might use a different grafting method than what I describe in the post. I’ve grafted onto branches up to about 2 inches in diameter using this method, and I’ve seen it done on branches 3 or more inches across (splitting such a thick branch is challenging). If the trunk is already more than 2 inches in diameter, then there are probably many healthy branches. You might find it easier simply to cut the broken leader cleanly at an angle (so water runs off of the face easily), and let the tree produce its own leader over the next growing season. If the main trunk produces a new branch just below the break, that branch can become the leader; in three or four years, it will blend with the existing trunk and you might not even notice there was a break in the first place.

Good luck. If you think of it, please drop by and let me know what you end up doing–and how it works out.

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:21:07 +0000

Hi,
I have a broken apple tree leader. Can I graft it to mend it? Can I do this in November in North Bay Ontario area? How large in diameter can the stock splice be?

Thanks,

Karl

By: admin

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:29:02 +0000

Rauf;

Thank you for visiting! If you try grafting using this or any other method, I hope you have great success. Grafting remains one of my favorite gardening projects: it’s amazing to combine two or more organisms into one. Some of my grafted branches are now 6 or 7 inch diameter tree trunks. So cool!

-Daniel

By: Rauf

Rauf — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 07:19:00 +0000

I got the translation of your werk and got the answere of my question there. so please ignore my previous comment. thanks and best regards for this practical website.

By: Rauf

Rauf — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:51:26 +0000

Thank you very much for this. Amazing……one can learn those things not possible some years ago without rising from his chair !! And thanks to the as well as the inventor of ‘WWW’.
my question is why aren’t you use conventional budding knife for the purpose?

By: admin

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:01:55 +0000

TJ: I don’t know enough about you or your tree to tell you for sure. If the tree is dormant, you can graft using the technique I do… however, the scions must also come from dormant trees. Here (hardiness zone 5b), trees are awake, so grafting is out of the question. But in zone 4, it might not be too late (for those who garden in zone 4, I hope it is too late; enough with winter, already).

I’d suggest that your tree would be happier if it had a full season to adapt to its new home. Let it get over its discomfort from being transplanted before you introduce a new source of stress.

When the tree is growing full-tilt in the summer, you can try bud grafting or budding. I haven’t tried the technique, and from what I’ve read, it doesn’t sound quite as easy as the method I use. And, since you don’t see growth on a bud graft until next spring, you might as well wait until winter and make your grafts then.