Social Media Compilation: Grafting Work

Mustang on chokecherry with an interstem. flowering intensely, pretty sure this can pollinate other plums.

Double working pears, here is paul pear on saskatoon as an interstem, with favoritka red on top. it's experimental, but I've noticed some pears take off and grow more vigorously on saskatoon, and some of these could be interstems.

Bolshaya pear full of flowers. It's grafted onto saskatoon, which can be precocious and it's dwarfing. I'm out grafting more pears this week.

Bench grafted plums, done kinda late in the season but maybe the timing will work. second photo is apricots on sandcherry, just finished them so i'm done bench grafting for the year. now just field grafting.. about 30 ea new plum, pear and apple varieties to graft out, just need it to stop raining for the weekend.

Grafting workshop on the weekend, thanks to everyone who came out. we had a dozen people at a nice outdoor location @assiniboinefoodforest and all the workshop fees were a donation. everyone got to bring home a grafted apple tree and extra scion wood, was fun to do

Couple of russian pears grafted in 2022 about to flower. excited to try them. one of the photos is the graft union on saskatoon, holding up well.

Grafting some lee red chokecherry, it's a variety with purple leaves. also garrington, with larger fruit, and even a yellow fruiting selection.

Z grafts I find are a good option when the scion is smaller, it benefits from the offset to the side to get cambium contact and heals over faster than a cleft graft. it looks a bit like a whip and tongue if you cut the tongue very close to the tip, it's cut with the scion flipped around so feels very different to do. #grafting

Hey made the local paper today, it's an article about an upcoming grafting workshop that we do at the @assiniboinefoodforest and it's just a $40 donation and you get to graft a tree and take it home. I set aside some of our largest rootstocks for it, 15 spots still some left for local folks in the Brandon MB area

Interstem, bridging brookred plum onto chokecherry with a short section of toka

My attempt to graft haskap seems to be working, I removed the foil shading the other grafts since they don't seem to be needed, it was just a precaution. this bush is in partial shade. and it experiences -3C for eight hours last night, haskaps shrug off the cold. excited to try and grow out a couple of these maxine thompson varieties, rooting hardwood was tricky with low success. softwood is easy.

Triple worked graft. choke cherry rootstock -> toka interstem -> mustang cherry flowering, second interstem -> apricots just grafted. mustang and last photo is sapalta flowering, unlike other plums these cherry plum hybrids like to flower just one year after grafting.

Attempting to graft swedish Leningradskaja sweet cherry onto pin cherry. It's zone 4 hardy, maybe even 3/4. I have some slightly sprouted scions so wrapping in foil to keep the sun off. #grafting

Plum grafting in my trial block of chokecherry. a short walk through some of the grafts with interstems that are waking up, with many positive results. this week I'm adding more cultivars, and trying some manchurian apricots, which will be using 2 interstems. choke cherry -> toka -> mustang -> apricot.

Ussurian pear grafted on saskatoon in 2022 flowering in it's third year.

Keeping an eye on things leafing out. it's the height of grafting season right now when the leaves are just starting.

Unwrapping graft unions from last year. If you use budding tape it can stretch and stay on the first winter

Z graft, an alternative to modified cleft when your stock is larger than scions. #grafting

Grafting haskap. will it work? not sure, must be possible. I have three maxine thompson varieties, initially tried to root as hardwood but it didn't respond, maybe a dryer 70-80% perlite mix could do it. haskap roots easily from softwood. anyway I have one scion of each as a backup to graft. I'll also add some foil protection around these to keep the sun off them. when I grafted haskap onto wild honeysuckle last year it didn't leaf out indicating the scions dried out, so will try bagging it. #propagation #haskap #grafting

My haskap grafts from the other day covered for the next 2 weeks with tin foil to keep them cool. This can help take for more sensitive grafts. I might use it on sea buckthorn as well.

Sending out scions this week, I have a few left just for shipping in Canada. #grafting

Haskap / honey berry grafted onto wild honeysuckle. There are a few species here, small and bushy rarely 3ft tall, another one that grows like a large shrub 8ft or more, also a vining type. Experimentally I'm trying cultivar haskap onto two of the species to see if they grow, there are some reports that there can be compatibility - they are all in the same genre. The larger bush form will be an advantage if it works, like making a standard with currants. #grafting

Root grafted prunus onto mustang cherry and some Nanking cherry this morning. I woke up and realized that I could probably trim the roots from small stock trees that were just potted up - to use up left over scions in the fridge and rest this method of grafting on prunus. The source plants are just leafing out and won't be harmed by the pruning, they'll get extra watering. Does root grafting late in the spring work? I don't know, I suspect the trees will need this season and next year in a bed to get up size. Some combinations trialing are Manchurian apricot, prunus maackii (Manchurian cherry), cherry plum, double flowering plum (Prunus × blireiana), American plum, and various plum cultivars onto mustang cherry and Nanking (prunus tomentosa) roots. Grafts were like a reverse modified cleft, this seems the most practical for root grafting. whip and tongue is only possible with thick material, otherwise roots just break. Success is one of the possible outcomes! #grafting

Grafting over sea buckthorn with some cultivars, the stock trees are all male so it will be nice to have some fruit and also grow out softwood to root. #grafting #seabuckthorn #seaberry

Bench grafted apples are waking up and ready to plant. #grafting

Top working chokecherry this week. I have so much of it here, working to develop it as a resource with some in house propagation methods. One of my goal this summer will be to use this method to grow out softwood and trial many prunus species and cultivars for softwood rooting potential. Another one is budwood production for July grafting. #grafting

Here's how I prep parafilm strips for grafting. about 0.5 x 3" with the backing removed, stuffed into a bag in my grafting belt. Usually I'll cut enough for 50-100 grafts at a time, which is about all I do in a day depending on the weather. #grafting

Toka plum interstem for cherry plum on chokecherry stock. trialing toka and a few others as interstems. #grafting

Chokecherry buds started to swell today in zone 3b southern Manitoba, they're the first trees I've seen start to wake up. this gets things rolling for a grafting project, I have a pile of scion wood to trial on chokecherry for compatibility, and about 50% is going to have an interstem that proved compatible last year. There's 2 goals: 1. to find all compatible prunus on P. Virginiana, and to use them as interstems to make this prolific rootstock work for cultivars plums and other stone fruit around our property and to document the compatibility for others. 2. Developing a system to rapidly grow out cultivar softwood from limited scion material for rooting under mist. own root plums, cherries, apricots

Apple bench grafts for this spring. I didn't count them, should be lots. There's a fun selection of cultivars and style of grafting in here. Our greenhouse is still cool during the day so they're going to callus in here for the next week or so and then go into cold storage until mid May. #grafting #applegrafting

Grafting season started today, the snow finally thawed from our heeled in rootstocks. first graft shown. #grafting #applegrafting

Bench grafting russian pears in my kitchen this morning. #grafting

Shmaven our polydactyl Siamese cat is very interested in scion wood, here he's helping me unpack some.

One of my grafted Toka plum trees top worked onto choke cherry, start of July last year. #grafting

Bridge grafting to fix vole damage #grafting #orchard

Planted our first season's apple bench grafts today. 12 zone 3 hardy varieties on full size Siberian crab apple rootstocks. I've had them in cold storage for about three weeks and the weather has been nice enough they should be ok. A few more nights of light frost likely, but things are leafing out. The apples in our orchard are just starting to show signs of waking up. #grafting #treenursery #permaculture

Frameworked an old apple tree. it's a parkland I planted in 2004 but never got around to pruning, so it was 25' tall with all the apples up high. Now it's a #frankentree .. #grafting

Bark grafts work well on larger stock and later on in spring when the bark is slipping, it just pos apart in a satisfying way. This is Toka plum on choke cherry, before it was wrapped up. #grafting #fruittree #fruittrees #graftingfruittrees

Apple on Saskatoon graft. In late summer well past grafting season I grafted onto about a dozen small trees, happy to see most are leafing out. Saskatoon is in the Rosacea family with apples and pears and has been used experimentally as a dwarfing rootstock for them. There's some conventional wisdom that pears will work, but few reports about Malus. This is an excellent result and will be followed up on. #grafting

Grafting plums to wild rootstocks all week. The prunus virginiana are just about to lead out. Selecting only vigorous growing trees with 12-36" of growth last year. #grafting #prunusvirginiana #graftingplumtrees #fieldgrafting #permaculture

Logistics of bench grafting when a late snow fall covers the nursery, our rootstocks are all heeled in and frozen under a pile of mulch and snow. Was expecting to bench graft a few hundred apples mid April and set them in the greenhouse to callous, but Manitoba weather has other plans - the highs are still below freezing so maybe.. I should bench graft in may? #backyardnursery #backyardorchard

Scion wood arrived from summerland. 2-3' whips, nice stuff #scions #grafting

Grafting plums onto wild choke cherries #grafting #chokecherry #backyardorchard

For whip and tongue grafts parafilm can be coiled like raffia to bing the graft tight, then cover to seal the union and scion. #grafting #applegrafting #backyardorchard

#Grafting season is on in southern Manitoba. #fruittreenursery #fruittrees #backyardnursery

Whip and tongue graft right before wrapping it up tight with parafilm. So many grafts to do this spring, still waiting on the trees

Budding, I'm a little hit and miss on it. will see how these do, it's chokecherry.

Double worked plum. on the rootstock is a short length of Prunus americana, and then on top Yakima plum, a cold hardy european plum. will it survive -40? we'll find out, it's in a semi sheltered location, five ft off the ground, and on a super cold hardy rootstock (chokecherry), all of these factors might improve winter survival. just in case I'll cut scions in november.

H. sinensis grafted to Hippophae rhamnoides, so it's a larger later ripening sea buckthorn species, female and full of fruit grafted to a male shelterbelt variety.

Black ice plums growing on chokecherry with an american wild plum interstem. one of a few dozen cultivars I'm trying on these interstems this year. vigorously growing chokecherry with a trunk 1" or more, in good sunlight are suitable. I expect the plum to grow a little larger so still waiting to see how balanced the tree is, some of my 2-3 year old grafts may need a stake. I'm seeing americana match the vigour of chokecherry better than toka, which while takes and grows well, the prunus simonii in it is too vigorous and needs some pruning to manage the size. so does americana, trial is ongoing. the deer did some pruning for me this week, good that all of my grafts are up high. #grafting

Western sandcherry grafted to *chokecherry*, showing some red indicating stress, early dormancy, no real growth so at least this graft unlikely to pull through. compared to prunus americana grafts which have dark green leaves and a couple ft of growth. I still want sandcherries up high, so will try again next spring with an interstem.

Favoritka pear, on saskatoon 3 year old graft first year flowering. determined to get to try these russian pears this year, maybe I should do a japanese style protective bag over it.

Purple/red leafed chokecherry, fun to graft these around and see the color change in june. the new leaves are green and change to purple after about a month

Checking apple grafts on saskatoon. some were done late spring, fun to see them decide to flower. two year old grafts have some fruit, first time.

Short interstems of toka on this combo brookred and brookgold plum grafted onto chokecherry.

Walk around my experimental pear orchard, grafted onto saskatoon. five min video. maybe I should be shooting for youtube, really this is mostly for my own video documentation, or if you've thought about growing pears on saskatoon rootstock this give you an idea of what 1-3 year old grafts can look like. site conditions will change the results, this is on established trees at shoulder height to stay above the browse line, also dense with some shade. hoping to start getting fruit next year, and I expect most will need staking.

Two chokecherry cultivars, first one is lee red, second is probably Schubert. they graft easily onto wild chokecherry and add some color. Lee Red has larger leaves on my grafts, not sure if that's common, it does seem to grow vigorously. #chokecherry #grafting

Apples I grafted onto a wild crab in our yard a few years ago, lost the tag and forget the variety. norkent?

Experimental apple grafts from 2022, finally caged. a year ago they were a rabbit's lunch and now have recovered, maybe 12" of growth this summer. these are on saskatoon which I expect to dwarf them, no one seems to know if it's compatible as an apple rootstock. for new grafts I start at shoulder height to be above the browse line.

Hawthorn grafted onto saskatoon. There's an interesting overlap of graft compatibility in the Rosacea family between several genuses, pear and quince, saskatoon and aronia, hawthorn and apple, and I have to assume more if you find the right interstems. there are some cool combinations to be tried and make the most inteteresting trees, these ones if the grafts endure will have purple berries and also 2" thorns with clusters of red fruit. #grafting

Graft union for this one year old red leafed malus baccata on our native amelanchier alnifolia, an unusual combination that seems to be healthy and somewhat graft compatible. #grafting #applegrafting

Grafting wild canadian plum

Chip budding this weekend, plums and apricots. #grafting

Finished budding plums and apricots for the year I think. Maybe I'll do more, not sure how late it can go. In warmer places I hear July is the right time, but here early august seems like the right timing to have mature budwood. #grafting

Checking apple grafts top worked onto saskatoon this spring. #grafting

Plum grafts from one month ago are starting to take off #grafting

Block of black chokecherry, prunus virginiana var melanocarpa grafted over to an assortment of other prunus to trial compatibility, grow out budwood for august budding onto rootstocks, and to produce softwood for rooting. So far this season take was high across every prunus species, and at 6-8 weeks every graft that leafed out continues to grow. Trialing various pruning and interstem interventions to keep as many growing until dormancy as I can, which can them be a reserve of dormant scion wood for next spring. Eventually I'll have an orchard of mature prunus for a more permanent resource, but chokecherry being common and plentiful here is working well so far. #propagation

Red siberian crabapple selection grafted to saskatoon / serviceberry one month ago. Out of all the apple grafts I've trialed onto A. alnifolia this one has had the best early growth. #grafting

Some late summer t budding, apple on saskatoon. the bark is still slipping on some trees. on smaller stocks or if the bark or if the bark doesn't want to cooperate then a chip bud works. These can be done late in the season because they just need take and then usually wait for spring to grow. #budgrafting #tbudgrafting #grafting

Chip budding plums. We've had by far the best result with Toka plum this year in our experimental grading trials onto wild rootstock, some of our grafts done in may have grown 4' with secondary scaffolds. We're now chip budding other cultivars onto Toka to use it as in interstem. #grafting

We had a wind storm this morning that broke off this grafted plum branch (shown upside down), there was a couple feet of flush growth above it. at 8 weeks there's more girdling than expected. Maybe I wrapped it too tight. One thing to pay close attention to is the strength of the graft union, if the tissues are less than compatible it won't be strong. In this case I think it's a girdled branch. I'll be removing the budding tape on all of our early May grafts this week and inspecting them. #grafting

Summer update for our plum on wild choke cherry grafts. Nearly every prunus variety we tried has grown, the most vigorous growth on this set of trees on a sunny hill. Success with this type of grafting in the first year seems to depend on the age and location of the root stock, as well as the amount of undergrowth and management of new suckering growth. I held off trying this for years because of anecdotal reports that it wouldn't work. My approach here is to question assumptions, research old studies where it was tried and do it for myself, there are quite a few variables, including genetic compatibility variation with specific individuals within a species. Choke cherry is prolific across forested areas in Canada, but there are no wood lots, parks, hiking trails or backyards full of them made into food forests by grafting them over.

Plum frameworked onto choke cherry at five weeks. #grafting #plumgrafting #intergeneric

Plum grafts on wild choke cherry. Our grafts were all done in the first three weeks of May and many are showing signs of growth, so a successful union so far. The take rate seems to correlate with age of the root stock and competing vegetation on it more than shade, type of graft or plum cultivar. In the fall we'll post a spreadsheet with some data, this is a multi year project to determine compatibility in cold hardy Prunus cultivars on the most prolific and hardy wild Prunus rootstock (Prunus virginiana) in our climate zone 3, southern Manitoba. #grafting #chokecherry

Apples grafted on saskatoon / service berry last month. September ruby, chestnut crab, Goodland, norkent. So far they're healthy and growing as fast as anything I grafted on an apple tree this year. There's at least early indication of good compatibility with these cold hardy cultivars. could this be just an excellent cold hardy dwarfing rootstock? Last winter we had a dozen nights colder than -35C, and the saskatoons are bullet proof to the cold. #applegrafting

Goodland apples are flowing this week. This tree and a few scions I've grafted out are all flowering at once. Takes a late spring for an apple tree to wait for the summer solstice to flower.

Progress on one of our multi grafted prunus virginiana. This size of tree seems to produce the most vigorous growth. #grafting #graftingplants #plumtree

Apple grafted to Saskatoon #grafting

Sweet cherry grafts onto pin cherry, in zone 3. will they survive and fruit? no idea, possibly first time anyone has tried this specific combination of swedish varieties (hardy to at least -30C) on top of some wild pin cherry in a zone that reaches -42C most winters. 5 ft off the ground help with deer grazing, and can help with air temperature, but surely this is an exposed location at the end of our lane, fully above the snow, but sheltered by some tall trees. #sweetcherry #zonepushing

Parkland apple grafted to saskatoon, second year. a few cultivars have had stand out growth on this unconventional apple rootstock, might need to replicate to know if it's a one off or better compatibility. one way to look at long term health is the graft union, which looks pretty good. trial ongoing.

Video is triple worked prunus, two interstems between a chokecherry rootstock and apricot on top. this worked well. the other photos are z graft unions from this spring, plums onto chokecherry. it makes a strong union that heals quickly, it's in between modified cleft and whip & tongue #grafting

Sweet cherry growing on pin cherry. leningradskaja may survive the winter here, but if it doesn't I've collected scions early and can try again next year. in this way by serial grafting scion wood can be produced.. and in this case even without prunus avium rootstocks #grafting #sweetcherry

Hawthorn grafted to saskatoon. liking the z graft, heals over better than modified cleft #grafting

Grafting sea buckthorn is tricky, but possible. Here's a fruiting branch grafted last spring from chinese sea buckthorn, H. sinensis onto a male H. rhamnoides , probably Indian Summer a shelterbelt seed strain. Sinesis gets larger, fruits a month later, and has a sharp citrus tasty flavour.

Collecting some scion wood today. in cold climates with a long winter this can be preferable to the spring time, so long as you have a strategy for storage that's at least as good as outside on the tree. storing in the new root cellar where I can keep it cool and humid, probably bagged in some peat. one more advantage here is varieties that are not quite cold hardy here can be grown, just need to graft it out every spring.

Winter gardening, I was going to wait for things to warm up but looks like winter is here. lifting apple bench grafts after a warm fall followed by snow and cold snap. usually I would be lifting these after the leaves are all dropped, but check the forecast and the temp graph photos, looks like snow is here to stay until the ground freezes some time in the next week. second year lifting bare root trees in the fall, happy I have the new root cellar for these to store in. I now wonder how often I'll be doing this in the snow! a very canadian experience.. #backyardnursery

I made a new blog post as a follow up to our wild rootstock grafting experiment. Also our site has a new design, and I've filled up the sections with most of the trees we'll have available this winter. There's a link in our profile to our site or you can type in oaksummitnursery.ca

A couple of norkent apple grafted onto saskatoon / service berry this spring. We had the same take with apple as we did pear, about 90% of the spring grafts on A. alnifolia are alive although the pear grew more, some of the pear grafts grew 3' and the average apple grew 1-2'. #appletree #grafting #serviceberry

Plum scion wood bundles that were cut early, just checking in on the moisture. looks good. Most people cut scions in spring, but there are good reasons to do some earlier. You can cut dormant scion wood any time after the leaves drop, and it can be easier in late november here before the snow gets deep. Another reason is growing borderline or out of zone varieties, early scions before the coldest months won't have any winter die back, like a backup in case it needs to get regrafted. For long term storage, nov - april I wax the ends and throw a handful of damp peat moss in the bag to buffer moisture and condensation. then store them in a fridge. or fridges. #scionwood

Root grafted apples. an old school technique that used to be the most common way to propagate them. I found the trees take an extra year to grow, these were grafted spring 2023. Inspired to research this in old gardening and nursery books after reading an article by @elizapples #grafting #rootgraft #applegrafting

Bench grafting apples last spring, the conventional and a few root grafts. I so look forward to doing it again this year, I didn't count but there were at least a few hundred and I'll do more this year. So far I've preferred parafilm and then a rubber on top. maybe I don't need both, but parafilm quickly holds a whip and tongue together and keeps it clean and dry inside, and the rubber feel like it holds everything tight.

Softwood propagation and fall budding around our Manitoba nursery last summer. #propagation

I've been thinking about this double whip graft, seem like it would heal over better than modified cleft. has anyone tried it? #grafting

Toka plum on wild chokecherry grafts. This one hybrid variety had the best compatibility and put on 3-4ft of growth last year. I've left them to overwinter with budding tape in place to add a little insulation from sun scald, hoping these make it through the winter. later this spring I'll be trialing Toka and a few others as an interstem on many more prunus varieties with the goal of finding compatible combinations for zone 3 hardy prunus to graft onto the prolific choke cherry around most of Canada. #grafting