/fruit tree/ The wonderful world of grafting

I occasionally start threads about fruit trees to try to help people grow their own fruit and help demystify the buying process.

This year i would like to help people who might have an established tree on their property that doesnt produce good fruit and how you maybe able to top work the tree with a great tasting variety of fruit. Or people who want to buy rootstock and graft a great tasting variety that you can enjoy.

I know more about low chill varieties.

Ask away. Might bump with infodump on fruit trees.

Other urls found in this thread:

sunset.com/garden/climate-zones
aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/faculty/davies/pdf stuff/ph final galley/M12_DAVI4493_00_SE_C12.pdf
youtu.be/adkhSOOTjMg
orangepippintrees.co.uk/
extension.unh.edu/resources/files/resource001686_rep2265.pdf
youtu.be/TgKrIelx6WI
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

is there a way to craft lemon tree thorns onto apple trees?

No. But it is possible to graft different prunus genus onto each other. Particularly, plum, plum hybrids, apricots, nectarines and peaches. For whatever reason cherries,at least for me wont graft onto plums although there are plum cherry crosses.

>Might bump with infodump on fruit trees.
Teach me senpai.
I fucking love fruit but I don't know if my place gets enough sun to have one.

All my citrus trees died from citrus greening. What do?

How long for a fruit tree to mature to the ability to yield a full crop of fruit for peach, pear, plum, nectarine, orange, grapefruit, lemon, and lime?

Questions that will set you up for success

1) Where are you located?

If in the US know your USDA hardiness zone, if in commiefornia know your sunzet zone.
sunset.com/garden/climate-zones

2) find out your chill hours using www.getchill.net (it works for california not sure if it works for other states/countries

3) call your local extension office and ask what type of fruit is suitable for your area

4) Pay attention to what your neighbors grow

After you have answered these questions you will have an idea of what you can grow. Then you can start deciding what you want to grow.

5) Are you growing in containers or in ground? This can help you select a variety.

6) select an area for planting where the tree will get at least 6 hours.

You a florida fag? Im nervous that my citrus trees will be affected by hlb virus so i stopped my citrus project. Im thinking about getting budwood from CCPP.

I would start a new orchard with non citrus trees until they figure that shit out.

Zone 5a (southwest MI)
-20°f lowest low temp this winter
Crabapple tree is established, can I graft onto that tree this black apple type sapling/sucker?

Great question. One important thing to know is if these are grafted trees or seedling trees.

Grafted citrus trees will take anywhere from 1-3 years from planting to start producing good crop then it will continue to improve as long as the tree is healthy and fed occasionally. Seedling citrus take a long time to bear anywhere from 5-10years.

Grafted prunus (apricot, cherry, plum, peach, nectarine) as long as they get the proper chill hours will start bearing fruit after 2 years in ground with production going up as long as its pruned correctly. Seedlings can take 7years or longer to bear.

No experience with pears but apples are similar to prunus in time to bear.

Of course this is in general and not set rules. On grafted trees rootstock can accelarate or retard bearing time. Also proper thinning practice prevent alternate bearing (heavy fruiting one year no fruit next year).

In theory you scould be able to graft apples to crab apple. The concern i would have is late frost destroying blooms. There are apples that were bred specifically for cold weather. Honeycrisp and goldrush being ones that im familiar with but im more experienced in growing stonefruit and apples in low chill mild winter environments. I have no experience dealing with extreme cold.

Forgot to answer your question directly. You should be able to graft that crab apple to another crabapple tree. You should take pencil thick dormant cuttings from the variety you want before its buds start swelling. Store them in a ziploc with a lightly damp paper towel and put them in the fridge.

The main consideration for me would be the type of grafting technique to use. This will depend on the size of the rootstock tree.

Do you have a pic of the tree you want to top work?

If it has multiple limbs i would saw off a couple and bark graft. Wrap scion in parafilm tape Then seal the wound with wax to prevent moisture loss.

Pic related.

I would leave at least one brach alone to act as a nurse branch. It will allow the tree to continue to move nutrients throughout the tree. Then once the grafts have several inches of growth cut it and graft it with some scions that you stored.

SkilCut/SkilCult (guy from the PNW on youtube) has piqued my interest in grafting apple trees, I wish to save my unique black apple variety before they're too old to produce quality fruit as its been 40 years since they've been planted. They're tired and aren't producing as well as they have in the past so I'd like to try and save them for future generations of family to enjoy.

Check out stephenhayes on yt he is an expert on english apples shows vids on how to graft too.

Just checked his channel under play
Ist he has 7 vids on restoring old apple trees may help.

i'd love to live somewhere arctic like that. right now i'm stuck in the humid southeast, too afraid to make a move across the country.

What kind of tree can I grow indoors?

I live in North Texas, if that matters, and I can leave all the lights on all day I want to.

I know that there are people that keep citrus indoors during the winter but im not educated on fruit trees that do well inside all the time. Also idk if regular florescent lights are enough to substitute sunlight. People who grow fruiting/vegetable plants have specialized lights.

It's only technically a fruit but my avocado tree has grown pretty well indoors. It's right next to a large window but it doesn't ever receive direct sunlight.

I'm sure it would probably grow better outdoors but pest management was a nightmare.

Yes, Floridian; also, homosexual.

Well i cant help you with your second problem but are you in an area that can grow mangos?

Winter Haven. Only ever heard about mangos growing in Miami area.

You could try some low chill peaches. Flordaprince and tropic snow seem to fit florida climate but best bet is to visit a local nursery and see what they sell, then cross check that info with online info of people in your area. Unscrupulous/ignorant sellers sometimes stock plants not suited to climate. Lowes and homedepot are notorious in my are for selling 3 in 1 cherry bing, lapins, black tartarian none of those cherries have low enough chill hours to do bear fruit in southern california.

thanks senpai. Are you a professional horticulturist or just a hobby?

Pretty involved hobbyist. So much so that i know more about what nursery owners have in stock/should order than they do.

How do I into all kinds of berries.

This thread has got more replies in 3 hours than /diy/ gets in a week

Hey OP I've got 2 trees of tangerines but only one of them gives good tasty fruit, can I get the other one to grow the same tangerines as the one that's actually edible?

What kind of berries?

Easy way buy the plants. Depending on your area you might want to grow them in containers to set them up with the right soil conditions. Blueberries need acidic soil. Azaleas mix and peat moss is said to work.

Im cheap so i would try to propagate berry plants. If you know people with the plants its easy just take cuttings. For hardwood cuttings take them when they are dormant. Store them in a ziploc with a lightly damp paper towel and put them in the fridge. Temps warm set them up in a 50/50 spaghnum moss and perlite mix keep moist. When they become well rooted up pot. After a year of growing plant them in a large container.

Berries can also be propagated by softwood cuttings but i have never tried it.

For an easy productive fruit i would look into mulberries they are not technically berries but the best tasting mulberries are superior imo to cane berries or bushes. Particularly Morus Nigra. Just becareful to plant the tree away from sidewalk or anything you wouldnt want stained. Also birds love them.

Yes. Look up fruitmentor on youtube. He has good quality videos on topworking and budding citrus. Ive never budded citrus but i have grafted onto citrus successfully. If you are in california you might be interested in looking up CCPP to order budwood from them to turn your unwanted tangerine tree into a multi grafted citrus tree. On the same tree you could have oranges, mandarins, grapefruit, limes, and pummelos.

The challenge with budding/grafting citrus in my experience is that citrus tree growth is governed by apical dominance (the taller bigger limbs take the growth and inhibit growth lower on the tree) which makes budding a challenge but not impossible.

bump. this thread is super comfy.

This is of interest to me. I have a house I'm trying to buy that has a large backyard with nothing in it. Planned on making a good size garden and planting some trees. Would be southwest of Houston and apparently there are a ton of different fruit trees that would grow here.

One thing that i havent mentioned that is important in growing fruit trees is the soil type. Typically fruit trees want a loamy well drained soil. Growing in clay or poor draining soil is an obstacle that has to be over come by proper rootstock, in some cases amending the soil, or sometime even planting the trees on a mound to prevent the trees from having their roots standing in water, which will cause root rot.

If you are thinking of starting a backyard orchard you have to consider if you would like a couple of large trees or lots of smaller trees.

I try to follow the principles of backyard orchard culture as described by dave wilson nursery. Also look into the principle of successive ripening which is growing fruit varieties such that you fill most of the year with a small amount of ripe fruit so that you can have some fresh fruit most days of the growing season.

Fantastic advice. Thank you.

Also see:

Show me your fruit trees.

How do I graft a rokakaka branch onto a regular fruit tree?

I'm in zone 8b. It kind of sucks. I'm almost too far south for most fruit while also being too far north for tropical fruit. A small orchard is kind of a new goal of mine. Could you recommend a variety of winter fruit tree whose produce will ripen during deer season, Nov-Jan?

Thanks. Super informative. You know your stuff and do a good job indicating which directions I should be looking. Another question, it's legal to keep bees in my area, do you think keeping a hive in a small orchard would produce a significant effect in fruit production or is it a negligible addition to a dozen or so trees?

Absolutely. It's nice to have specialists around on boards. /k/ has oppenheimer for nuclear deterrent questions. It's nice to see Veeky Forums has a orchard guy. I now there used to be a guy here who knew mushrooms like the back of his hand and would answer questions every picking season. I miss that guy. Now Veeky Forums's only technical experts are this guy and some of the brewers.

Terrestrial Fungi has been my go to guy, the facepage is where he resides.

Bees are great but if you dont want to deal with a hive there are solitary bees that are great pollinators such as the the blue orchard mason bees.

I go mostly close ups. This is a parfianka pomegranate blossom.

This is a white nectarine tree arctic star.

This here is probably the prettiest blossom in my orchard double delight necatarine.

Arctic star fruitlet. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of the mature fruit.

If you could answer questions it would help determine fruit varieties to choose. Also are you in a humid environment? Humidity creates many challenges with prunus fruit but selecting resistant varieties to brown rot. Spraying can help control but i live in a dry heat environ ment so i have no personal experience dealing with brown rot.

Pic is sweet treat pluerry blossom

I need/want to learn about grafting so much, do you know any books, or do your knowledge come from experience alone

I learned most of the grafting techniques from university pdfs on grafting. Then youtube. But you have to learn from experience. Especially the knife work. I still have trouble getting even wedges on my knife cuts.

Many people swear by whip and tongue graft but for me its too fiddly. I stick to mainly cleft graft on prunus and veneer grafts on subtropicals and mangos.

I love the cleft graft because scionwood to rootstock size doesnt really matter (unless the bark on the rootstock is way too old, in that case use a bark rind graft). you have to pay attention to matching up cambium layers on both scion and rootstock like in op pic (if the stock is smaller you can just use one scion). I like to wrap the entire graft tightly in parafilm starting from the bottom and moving up overlapping slightly. Im defining the graft as 1/4" below the cut into rootstock all the way up the scion including the buds. You just have to be careful not to move the scion. Then wrapping the bottom 1/4" below cut yo the edge of where the rootstock was cut off with a vinyl nursery tape (some people use rubber bands instead of vinyl tape with good results ive never used them). The vinyl tape has to be removed after 3-5 months so it doesnt girdle the tree. The parafilm will degrade on its own.

Ill look to see if i still have some of the pdf saved and post them.

aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/faculty/davies/pdf stuff/ph final galley/M12_DAVI4493_00_SE_C12.pdf

What kind of trees are you looking to graft/propagate?

Heres a good one. But experience is the best teacher. Plums have been the easiest for me to graft. If you plan on grafting peaches cut or acquire the scionwood when its dormant store it in a ziploc bag with a slighlty moist paper towel and put it in the refridgerator. Wait until temps outside reach 75-85F and graft normally.

Note: most temperate fruit tree scionwood can be stored in the same manner. Tropical scionwood isnot stored in the same way, but since ive never done it i dont know best practice on tropical scionwood preparation.

bump

Pic Immature flavor grenade pluot.

If you have a fruit tree that is producing very small fruit with poor quality you should employ a thinning regiment when the fruit it dime sized. Thin to around 1 fruit per 4 inches for plums and 1 fruit per 6-8 inches for peaches and nectarines.

Thinning will allow for larger better quality fruit and will help prevent alternate bearing.

I sometimes thin 80% of fruit of a 7ft tree and still harvest enough fruit to share.

Also you can concentrate sugars in fruit by reducing watering in the last month before harvest. Water the minimum amount possible. It will retard growth but make better quality fruit. The improvement in sugar concentration is significant. Before employing restricted water before harvest a santa rosa plum off my tree would be around 18-21 brix(measure of sugar diluted in solution) . After the brix was increased to 24-28. The fruit will be smaller and may have sugar speckling (especially on nectarines). High sugar apples like fuji get something called water core which are seen negatively by growers but are sweeter than non water core apples (might fuck up shipping capabilities?)

Most fruiting plants are propagated by grafting, rooting or airlayering. Most of the fruit you eat has been from trees that have been grafted. As previously discussed grafted trees produce fruit much faster than seedlings. But the main reason fruit trees are asexually propagated is to create an exact copy of the mother plants fruit. That is to say, the fruit of a seedling will not be the same as the parent tree. More often that not the fruit of a seedling will be of poor quality.

Rooting fruit cuttings is the easiest way to multiply or acquire free plants. Citrus, stone fruit (prunus), mangos, and pome fruit (apples, quince, pears)are not rooted as they are not easily rooted.

Pomegranates, figs, berries, grapes, and some mulberries are propagated through cuttings. Rooting cuttings can be difficult if you are in a colder climate. Cuttings really like to be rooted between 75-85F. Cuttings also want to be kept moist. Dessication of cuttings and scions is one of the top reasons for failure. To overcome this, some people use misters or humidity domes to keep moisture high while rooting. Warmth can be achieved by specialized heating mats. I am currently trying to wrap the cuttings in parafilm to keep moisture. It seems to be working but its early days.

Special note on mulberries while morus alba and morus rubra are supposed to root quite easily, morus nigra are really difficult to root. Morus nigra can should be grafted.

Grapes are easy but special attention must be taken with orientation (top bottom). Take a cutting with 4 nodes should be 12-18" length. Plant in a container leaving only 2 buds above soil. Water. Keep moist.

Rooting hormone can improve successful rootings.

Pic is a fig from internet.

Then explain my tree I grow limes tangerines Cherry's and granny Smith apples on my tree

what's the difference between maine blueberries and all the shitty blueberries?

Im no expert on blueberries, but blueberries are broken into two subtypes highbush and lowbush. Lowbush blueberries are grown in maine and eastern part of US. They are a small bush with high quality fruit. Highbush blueberries are a taller bush with lower quality fruit. My guess is most of the commercial blueberries are highbush variety because of their production.

Oh man, I have some tiny apple trees that I grew from seeds I sprouted, the apples they were from were delicious. Are you telling me the fruits from the trees are going to be worse? That sucks

Thank you for a positive and informative thread!
There is hope yet.

Its like children. Chances are the apple you had was pollinated so it will be a cross between the mother plant and the pollen that pollinated it. If you can bear to wait you could try it and see how you like it. But if you know what variety of apple it is you can graft it onto the seedling you have and assuming the graft takes you will have the apple you want. There are places that sell/give away scionwood depending on where you are in the country. You might be able to go to a nursery and "borrow" a piece of scionwood to graft.

Maine blueberries are smaller, have less water in them, and are more flavorful. I thought I hated blueberries until I hate wild ones.

Bumping. Quality thread, OP.

Budding is an asexual propagation technique that relies on one bud from a desired variety to be put onto a rootstock. While most grafting, such as cleft, whip and tongue, and saddle graft are done during late winter to mid spring, budding is a grafting technique that is done mid spring to mid summer.budding is done later because it needs the layer directly under the bark to be active to allow for bark slip.

Common budding techniques include the t bud, the inverted t bud and chip budding. T budding and inverted t budding propagation is common in citrus. Chip budding can be used to graft decidous fruit trees but ive never done it successfully. It requires an advanced knowledge of knowing when to bud, where to bud on the rootstock, which bud to select, and very precise knife work. It also requires careful handling as touching the cut surfaces may cause failure due to contamination.
Major benefit to this technique is that one budwood stick can be used for multiple buddings since you only use 1 bud.

Here is a video detailing the process

youtu.be/adkhSOOTjMg

Very cool thread. I live in zone 4 (US), what are good apple trees? And can I graft something else on to it? Do I need 2 trees, or will it self pollinate? Thx in adv

I am in a warm winter low chill environment so i have little experience with cold hardy apples.

orangepippintrees.co.uk/

Has large amount of apple descriptions as well as pollination information.

Honeycrisp cold hardy good flavor. Pollinated by rubinette, kidds orange red, empire, and cortland

Rubinette is the daughter of cox orange pippin and is considered one of the best apples in the world. Pollinated by honeycrisp, cortland, empire,

Cortland apple is partially self fertile and cold hardy. Pollinated by kidds orange red, rubinette, honeycrisp,

Empire apple is cold hardy and partially self fertile. Pollinated by honeycrisp and rubinette

Kidd orange red is another cox high quality apple and cold hardy. Pollinated by honeycrisp and cortland.

If by grafting something onto an apple tree you mean more varieties of apples (or crab apple) then yes you can. You cannot however graft lemons or peaches or pears onto an apple tree.

Apples really benefit from pollination. Some varieties i listed are partially self fertile but they will bear more fruit if there is pollination. If you have space for only one tree just graft multiple varieties onto one tree. This will allow for multiple varieties to cross pollinate which eliminates the need for two trees. If you do this just make sure that no one graft overtakes and dominates the tree. Rule of thumb, check the growth of the tree to the slowest growing graft. It will retard and diminish harvest in the first years but it will set up the tree for success in the future.

The ripest, sweetest apples I've had also happened to have streaks of red running through their flesh

it was like the skin bled into the flesh leaving veins of pink in there. Have you ever experienced this? These apples were ridiculously sweet and fragrant, I got them from a farmer's market.

Where were you? Farmers market vendors, at least in my area are maximum 5 hr drive from the place they sell. I know some apples that have a pink tinge inside like pic related.

Then there are apples that are entirely pink imsode such as pinkpearl. Its hard to identify one apple without seeing a pic and knowing where its from because there are thousands of recognized varieties and dozens that are grown commercially.

Here is a plum cherry hybrid graft. Notice that the buds have no trouble breaking through parafilm.

Heres a better pic of a peach graft.

From what said it sounds like the same kind of blueberries grow wild in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia too. I used to pick them while on backpacking trips through wilderness areas when I was a kid. Smaller berries than the South American ones you get at the store, but much more flavorful. I actually live not too far away from that area now. I’ve never tried to grow berries before, but maybe I could make a small excursion to take cuttings from some of those wild bushes and try to grow them at home?

Yes. If its on public land you can probably take a plug and replant. Cuttings (both dormant and softwood) would work but you will have to root them which has a larger error margin and will delay first crop for a season or two.

extension.unh.edu/resources/files/resource001686_rep2265.pdf

Just make sure you get a plug from a blueberry plant that has good tasting fruit.

Pic unrelated (dapple dandy pluot graft, also sold as dinosaur egg in stores).

Also, blueberries like acidic soil so find out your soild acidity. Or you can always plant them in containers just use acidic potting mix.