Lakngulf and Grafting...hmmmmmm

[lakngolf]

Well I have jumped into the mix with my first ever effort at grafting. A few years back I grew some pear seedlings from seed, with high hopes. Unfortunately, as I have documented on the forum, the seedlings were not true to the Mother tree and produced only small ornamental pears. Not what I was looking for so some weeks back I gathered some scions from a neighbors pear tree, put them in the frig, and this week tried my hand at grafting. Needless to say, I do not have surgeon hands.
The first shock came when I realized that I had to cut these pear trees that were about to be full of blooms.

But cut them I did

I cut scion sections about 6-8 inches and whittled them to fit into the bark that I scored with a sharp box cutter. I had watched videos which included using a hammer to help with the scoring. The scions fit neatly into the bark slots and I quickly wrapped grafting tape around the trunks.

This is how they look now

For a few trees that are only couple years old I tried the Whip and Tongue method.

As I was finishing up I looked over, saw a small persimmon tree and thought "Why Not? I need to add some new knowledge to this subject, good or bad". So I cut the persimmon, scored the bark and inserted two pear scions to see what will happen.

Here's hoping. I soaked the grafts again this morning, and have rain in the forecast. Daytime temps are a little higher than normal but cool nights and mornings.

Questions:
1. The larger pear trees have LOTS of limbs below the graft, as you can see in this picture. How many do I need to prune?

2. One video showed paper bag over grafts. Necessary?
3.. How long should it take to see whether the grafts are working?

 

[THE LLC]

If they take, cut all the limbs off below the grafts. Pear to persimmon won't work.

 

[Native Hunter]

I agree with LLC.

If they don' take, next year you should be able to cut a little lower on the pear tree and try again. You may recall me topworking some big crabapples last year about the size of your pear trees. Those did take, but I also tried something else that I felt worked well too. I cut one off at the groundline and chose the best sprout that came back from the ground to graft to the next spring. At some point, I got rid of the other sprouts that came back from the ground, leaving the one I chose and grafted to. If you do this, however, be sure to cage the sprouts that come back from the groundline or they will get eaten.

I just mention this because I feel it gives you two different options for a second attempt if the first attempt doesn't work. You can do the same thing with persimmon, but you need to be grafting pear to pear and persimmon to persimmon. Best wishes Lak.

 

[DLH]

If those pears heal up you will get some nice growth after a year with a tree that big. Might want to keep an eye on them throughout the season they may grow too much for the union to support. Also don’t give up on them I bark grafted a tree about that size last year and I thought it had failed but I was surprised it was just slower than my others. I think part of it was the size of the tree that’s a lot of stress to cut them at that size. Also that graft didn’t grow like I had expected due to another graft I had done the year before again I think it was the size. I think there’s a sweet spot for bark graft and tree size I believe once they get a certain size they should be done as native mentions but it doesn’t hurt to try in spring and I would try it no matter the size because I like grafting. Also if your grafts fail don’t wait until next spring find a nice size for t or chip budding and try again this summer that will give you a head start next year. The persimmon won’t work but maybe consider getting some persimmon scions and give it another go especially since you have some practice with the pears now. Good luck sorry for the long winded write up.

 

[lakngolf]

Thanks for the help and suggestions and help. Anxious to see what happens. I grafted a similar one at home that I can baby and keep an eye on....and hopefully learn a thing or two!

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Lak,
If you're able to pull that pear/persimmon tree off I'm prepared to crown you the king of grafting at the arboretum of your choice!
Your crown would be adorned appropriately of course, pears, apples, and several tomatoes.

 

[Native Hunter]

Lak,
If you're able to pull that pear/persimmon tree off I'm prepared to crown you the king of grafting at the arboretum of your choice!
Your crown would be adorned appropriately of course, pears, apples, and several tomatoes.

Knowing Lak, he will find a way to do it. He grows big red maters in a catfish lake, so anything is possible with him........

 

[lakngolf]

Knowing Lak, he will find a way to do it. He grows big red maters in a catfish lake, so anything is possible with him........

Yeah y All should not have told me I can't do it

 

[dogdoc]

at least the pear to persimmon was good practice. I accidentally grafted some persimmon scions to a pecan. Budded out and made a small leaf and looked great. Of course it died and then later in the summer I realized it was a pecan..lol.

Pear grafts look great. Hard to fail on a bark graft---even I can get those going. You will want to support them later in the summer. You may get a lot of top growth and one good wind storm can topple all you hard work over in a second.

good luck
todd

 

[lakngolf]

With our record high temps down South I did go back and place some bags on many of the grafts. Hopefully that will help.
We do now have rain on the rain and cooler temps.

 

[lakngolf]

X

 

[buckvelvet]

Is that the X of death doom and despair?

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Marks the spot?

Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk

 

[Native Hunter]

Lak, I have a feeling that X probably isn't good news....

There are people on here smarter than I am, but if all else fails, I have a suggestion to try. There are two possible outcomes:

1. Good outcome
2. Bad outcome

The suggestion would be to cut it off at the groundline and hopefully get sprouts growing up from the stump. You will need to put a cage around the stump to keep the sprouts from getting eaten. Once the sprouts got a nice size for grafting, you would then graft them and keep the one that is the most successful. Your problem is then solved, and because you have such a strong root system, the tree grows very fast. This would be the good outcome.

The bad outcome would be that you flat out kill it from shock and don't get any sprouts. That isn't likely to happen, but it can happen. But, if you have something of little value, the loss is not that great.

I have done this method just described on a couple of crabapples. It has worked well. I haven't tried it on a pear yet, but it should work the same. The advantage to this method is that the graft heals quickly because the host is a smaller size. When topworking big trees, you can sometimes get slow closing of the wound and a risk of decay spots.

My suggestion is not to do what I have suggested as a next step, but as something to try as a last resort if the other topworking doesn't work on the next attempt. Best wishes my friend.

PS: Keep in mind this advice is coming from someone abnormal and who even enjoyed the Swine Flu....

 

[Triple C]

lak...I'll be following along on your new grafting trials n errors. After LLC showed me how to graft scions to rootstock last year that grew like crazy I had him send me 10 more scions from his yates n horse apple trees and bench grafted to B118 rootstock 2 weeks ago. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I did it right and will have em growing in not time. Just ordered 5ft tubes for them. I got a killer persimmon producer that I'm going to try my hand at next year.

 

[lakngolf]

Is that the X of death doom and despair?

Yep. I should have known since Native Hunter' s first reply told me what to do "next time"