North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Christopher Kennel <ckennel@gmail.com>]

In March I posted a question about trying bark grafting with current
season's non-dormant scions.  I thought I'd report what I tried and what
I've found so far.

On Memorial Day I performed bark grafts on established peaches and Japanese
plums with dormant and non-dormant scions.  I used dormant scions for 6 bark
grafts on plums and 6 on peaches.  Along side these I tested only 1 bark
graft with non-dormant material for each.  All of the plum grafts were
successful, but so far only 1 of the dormant-scion peach grafts have taken.

I used the same technique for all the grafts with the exception of the
following things.  To help speed callousing and hopefully prevent the
non-dormant scions from leafing out too soon, I dipped both ends of the
scion in 0.1% indole-3-butyric acid.  I also cut all the petioles off the
non-dormant scions, and for both the dormant and non-dormant scions I
wrapped the entire graft and scion in parafilm to reduce dessication.
Lastly, for the peach's non-dormant scion, I used 1-year old wood whereas
for the plum I used this spring's new growth.

Obviously I need to do more grafts to determine whether I just got lucky on
the plum or if what I did reliably works.  I think I'll experiment with
using this spring's peach growth to see if that impacts the results too.
I'm also not sure about the quality of my peach dormant scions since the
ones I used came from a dormant bare root three that I had ordered.  I have
some other dormant scions that I collected myself that I should try in order
to see if the problem was in my technique, the scions or something
particular to peaches.

All the best,
Chris Kennel
Denver, CO (zone 5)

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:48 AM, Christopher Kennel <ckennel@gmail.com>wrote:

> When working with stone fruits in the past I've whip-and-tongue grafted in
> the dormant season and chip budded in the summer, but this year I'd like to
> experiment with bark grafting.  Since I didn't collect any dormant scions
> this winter, I'm wondering what would happen if I tried to bark graft with
> non-dormant scions this summer.  To reduce transpiration from the grafted
> scions before the callouses form, I propose cutting the petioles very short
> or off and wrapping the entire scion with parafilm.  I also plan to use the
> scions soon after cutting them and could place them in water or wrap them
> with damp paper towels immediately after cutting them from the host trees.
>
> I've read that one can bridge graft with non-dormant scions in the event
> that a trees gets girdled, so it stands to reason that it may be possible to
> perform other grafts with non-dormant scions as well.
>
> Has anyone else tried using non-dormant scions with grafting techniques in
> which dormant scions are normally used?  If so, what were the results?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris Kennel
> Denver, CO (zone 5)
>
>