Where were you grafting it on? In other words, what was the stock you were grafting the peach and nectarine scions?
JM.

Carla, it took me quite a few years to figure out how to graft peaches. My main suggestion is to watch the temperature. Peaches callous best at around 70F, and callous poorly at lower temps. I wait until a week of weather of highs in 70's-80's and lows in 50's is forecast, and graft then. Wrap the grafts very tightly, and seal the scion from drying out - sometimes they take long to callous and so drying out is a bigger deal. I use doc farwells compound to seal them. Lastly, try to avoid temp fluctuations from the sun by grafting on the north side and/or wrapping over with aluminum foil to reflect the sun.

I would recommend picking two different periods to graft in. For example this year I did my first period about ten days ago. It looks like half of my grafts from that period are already showing takes. I managed to get takes on all varieties already, but I will do one more round at the next warm period just to have backups. Also as you can see I recommend doing many grafts of each variety, not just one. Even when the weather wrapping etc is perfect, it is hard to get to 100%. So far after 10 days I have 50% taking. It cooled off a bit too soon and I expect I will top out at about 70% from that batch. I usually do better than that, but never 100%.

Scott

Scott-

Thanks for the peach info. This will come in handy next year.

Has your orchard grown in size this spring (added trees)???

How is that La Crescent plum looking? I might be getting my hands on one soon.

Hi Frank,

I am mostly out of room for new plantings but did manage to extend one of my peach/plum rows a bit due to my forsythia dying, and I am putting some pomegranates in by my house to see if I can manage to get them fruiting. I also added several varieties to existing full-grown trees, maybe 25 varieties total.

The La Crescent is again fully loaded. It and Shiro are by far my best plums in terms of hanging on to their load. My Santa Rosa, Satsuma, pluots, Howard Miracle, and Wickson have as usual dropped most of their fruit already. I did get a much bigger bloom on those this year and so I think I may finally get some reasonable harvest on them for the first time. Superior also seems to be a good plum here in terms of hanging on to the fruit.

Scott

Scott:

Thanks for the tips--what types of grafts are you doing for your peaches? Whip? T-budding???

I am trying to add a variety onto my other peach trees, not grafting onto a rootstock.

Thanks!

Carla in Sac

I did about 25 grafts this spring in my greenhouse. About 2/3 plum/pluot and 1/3 nectarine. Mostly whip and tongue, several bark, and a couple cleft. I had one W&T and one bark that failed. I tried the first bark graft on a nectarine before the bark was slipping so I didn't get good contact with the cambium of the rootstock. I was really surprised that I did so well with the W&T. This was on about 1/2 inch diameter material.

I wrapped all grafts with large rubber budding strips. Covered that with Al foil. The Al foil covered the scion until it started pushing buds in about 10 days. I left the foil and rubber bands over the graft union until there was about a foot of new growth. I was very pleased as this was my first attempt at this many grafts.

I've had nearly 100% takes T budding all types of fruit from May until August. Apples, pears, and cherries are definitely easier than Apricot, peach, and plum. A large part of the difference is that the bark of the former is more substantial than the latter. It takes a delicate touch to bud apricot and plum esp with small diameter scions. The little bud section is very delicate. I usually remove the wood from the bud. On these species that works. On others it might not. It is much easier to get a good fit of the bud into small diameter stock with the wood removed. I wrap the T buds with rubber budding strips and nothing else.

The Fruitnut

Carla, I do all kinds of grafts depending on the sizes of the scion vs stock: bark, cleft, whip, chip. I have not noticed any significant difference in the type of graft as far as percent takes goes. For backups I often do chip buds because I can add a bunch on existing trees and if the main graft works I never have to force them. Note that I don't bother to backup anything but peaches - I find all other tree fruits to be trivial compared to peaches. Some people find apricots hard but they nearly always work for me if I follow the same temperature regimen as peaches; I already have 100% takes this year on 'cots.

Fruitnut is correct that summer grafting is much easier due to higher heat and more stock vigor. If that is an option in terms of getting budwood, give it a go!

Scott

Scott:

Please describe how you do chip budding. That's one I've never tried. I can visualize how it might be done but a description would help. Assume it could be done in early spring?? Does the stock need to be actively growing??

Thank you!!

The Fruitnut

Fruitnut, chip budding is the same as T budding for the scion - you cut out a small 1-bud chip. The difference is what you do to the stock. Instead of cutting a T you cut out a piece the same size as your scion chip and fit it into that and wrap. The only advantage over T budding is the bark need not be slipping since you are not doing any bark peeling. It is primarily a summer graft which is then forced the next spring, but it also works in the spring and can be forced that year.

Bumping this...

Any more peach grafting done lately? I have a bunch of seed grown trees that should have named trees grafted on them.

Bumping this again for others to read.