Jerry -
Yes, the photo came through and is very helpful.
Again, thank you so much for your knowledge and assistance! I am also of
the opinion that tight wrapping is best, at least with the apples and pears
with which I have the most practice/experience. In my opinion, my plum
grafts are wrapped sufficiently tightly; they're just not as tight as I
would have wrapped an apple or pear, as I was concerned my usual
super-tight wrapping last year might have been part of the cause of last
year's plum graft failures ;)
Your explanation of how to properly use parafilm should also be extremely
helpful for others who may be new to using it. Crazing (the technical term
for polymer chain alignment during elongation, if I'm correctly remembering
my schooling) is a necessary ingredient in parafilm's proper use, and is
one of those things you have to have someone explain or show you!
-Pete
Pete Chrisbacher
On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 8:24 AM, Jerry Lehman <jwlehmantree@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 3/23/2016 7:36 AM, Peter Chrisbacher wrote:
>
> Thank you both, gentlemen, for your helpful advice! I've heard
> anecdotally that grafting plums is possible (and one of the guys at the
> BYFG grafting meeting told me "ALL my plum grafts took last year! I just
> did normal grafts!" without providing any helpful details).
>
> I grafted three last night (splice) on actively growing 1 YO in-ground
> rootstock with dime-size leaves. Most of the leaves were high up the
> leader, so they ended up getting cut off. I'm assuming (hoping) the roots
> will just continue pushing into the scion now if my grafts are any good. I
> wrapped tightly but not excessively with a budding rubber, then parafilm,
> including a single-wrap covering of the lowest scion bud to keep it from
> drying out (2 buds on each scion). Tree-cote to seal the exposed scion cut.
>
> Pete,
>
> Thank you Fluffy for your concurrence. Let me add 2 more " by the ways,"
> and an observation.
>
> Storing cherry scion's in a normal refrigeration for any length of time
> can lead to a problem. 40° to 45° is too warm, it approximates the outdoor
> temperature when cherry flower buds become active. Likewise they will do
> that in the refrigerator at those temperatures and will be too active when
> grafting reducing the success rate. Store cherry scion wood as close to the
> freezing temperature as you can to keep it fully dormant. My scion storage
> refrigerator has been modified and it will actually frost in the bottom
> where the coldest air settles and a little frost will not hurt a fully
> dormant piece of scion wood. At least I have never detected damage to scion
> wood that has been lightly frosted. I would not stored in a deep-freeze
> where the temperature can get down to near 0 because if any activity had
> begun in the scion wood, the cells filling with water, the cells could
> burst damaging the wood.
>
> I have often grafted using the splice graft or machine graft and pulled
> the rubber band as tight as I can. You would think it could constrict the
> activity but certainly in persimmon and pawpaw I've not seen a problem. It
> will girdle the graft sooner because there is less elasticity left for
> expansion. As soon as the graft has calloused and begun growth simply cut
> the rubber band in one or 2 places and there is no need to remove it as now
> the expanding calloused area is not restricted. Again I cover the entire
> scion wood starting below the graph point with Parafilm, no need to fool
> around with wax or anything else. Simply expand (stretch it out
> approximately double length) the Parafilm start below the graft union keep
> wrapping all the way up and pitch it off above the scion or continue back
> down until you run out of Parafilm. Anything that I have ever grafted
> pushes right through it, and I've made many many grafts of many species.
>
> In my opinion wrapping tightly is important. I believe the 2 cambium
> layers must be pulled and held together in order to callous, especially in
> hardwood such as nut trees which would include harder wood of the plum
> family. Plum wood is much more dense than cherry. I've had people tell me
> they have successfully grafted using masking tape to hold the understock
> and scion together and I have no doubt that can work. But I firmly believe
> to increase your success percentage, wrap the graft union tight. Jerry
>
> A persimmon button pushing through Parafilm.
>
> As IBIBLIO often sees pictures as spam ( numerous times I've been removed
> from the list for sending pictures) and IBIBLIO doesn't include the sender
> I have no way of knowing if this was passed through and if I'm still
> allowed on the net. Would someone let me know via direct email that the
> picture came through.
>
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