Watch this, grafters

[canadamike]

Available at Grower Supply

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvg1WkFhPyI&feature=player_embedded

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2tAWYJmonI&NR=1

[raymondo]

Wow. I want one!

[mnjrutherford]

I like that tool! It's on eBay for $65... =o( YIKES! Maybe I'll start with a wee little knife?

[rockguy]

I guess this mean all grafted trees will be getting real cheap now. Maybe not.

[plantsnobin]

Don Compton, a local persimmon guy, gave a grafting workshop 3 or 4 years ago that I went to. He had one of those, showed it to us while we were getting in our cars as an afterthought. They have been around quite awhile, but the old grafters don't seem to use them much. I don't know if they can be taken apart to sharpen the cutting part, but Don's seemed to make less than a clean cut. Kind of smashed the wood instead of precision cutting. Maybe that is why thay aren't used as much.

[Hristo]

Few years ago I was about to buy one from eBay, but completely forgot for it. Now you remind me again. But I'm not sure if it's worth the money? Here some observations:
www.cloudforest.com/cafe/forum/64596.html

[canadamike]

Thanks Hristo. That was my only concern, really. The omega is the only one that interests me in the 3, really. I had 2 points of interrogation: first, the blade. Is it carbide or at least HSS steel. I am sure that not after having read. I am a woodworker...

Second, since the grafter operates from both sides of the blades to get the male and female cuts perfectly fit, that is what they can be at best: perfectly fit, another way to say not much pressure to link cambiums despite the good looks of the graft. One is better strech the parafin tape as much as he can...

One way to circumvent the problem would be to make 2 exacto orknife cut on each side of say, the male omega, then peal back the cambium. make the cut, then put it in its slot and cover back with peeled young bark/cambium. It would not be long to do and provde perfect mechanical contact and perfect cambium contact, one touching the other.

The peel and recover trick is used in bud grafting with success.

The exterior of such young wood, the ''green bark'', is celularlly so close to pure cambium that they merge.

I'd buy it tomorrow with carbide blades even if it was 50 dollars more. I will have a lot of grafts to do in the future.

[mnjrutherford]

Wow, there are a lot of negative comments about this tool out there. With the price, it's not on my list to Santa.

However, I do need grafting tools and I kinda need them quick like. I hadn't realized that the time to get to work was so close to hand. What would comprise a sturdy "kits" of tools and equipment and are there any recommended places to purchase these items?

[peapod]

Cant a good sharp knife tool of some kind work for grafting instead of some expensive "grafting" tool! The videos that I've wateched on youtube seem to be pretty forward with out the use of a "special" tool. I have NOT used one so I cannot say for sure what would work best but I better figure it out because I am going to be a grafting freak here in a month of so. I ordered 200 root stocks from many different fruit trees. They'll either die or make it. No middle ground in this experiement.
Wish me luck.

[plantsnobin]

A grafting knife is all anyone would need, and even if you only have an old pocket knife, that will do, as long as it is sharp. Good luck with your grafting. With 200 trees, you have some room to practice.

[elleipsis]

On the topic but slightly off topic..are grafted fruit trees as fruitful and hardy as trees developed naturaly?? I planted 6 grafted fruit trees last year and didnt know until they were in the ground.

[mnjrutherford]

I didn't find any rootstock for the nuts so I'm rooting them. I'm getting pear root stock from Cummins Nursery 607-227-6147. With tax, license, destination charges, and a quart of blood, the cost for 10 came to a grand total of $51.20. Their website isn't fully armed and dangerous. Clearly they are more focused on the technicalities of their mission as grower/producers then they are on the technicalities of their website. Not an entirely bad thing in my opinion. I called and placed my order over the phone and they are getting paid via check from the bank.

[grunt]

elleipsis: In short I would have to say yes. Once the graft has properly healed, they are, to all intents and purposes, no different than if they had started from seed or cutting. Likely more than 90% of commercial fruit trees are grown grafted onto some other rootstock, which they wouldn't be doing if it wasn't cost effective.

[mjc]

Mar 17, 2010 1:42:30 GMT -5 elleipsis said:

On the topic but slightly off topic..are grafted fruit trees as fruitful and hardy as trees developed naturaly?? I planted 6 grafted fruit trees last year and didnt know until they were in the ground.

I'll take hardy first...and start with apples.

There are several varieties of apples that are known for being extremely hardy...down to -40° F. One of them has usable but not very outstanding fruit. But it is often used as a rootstock variety for producing a nearly 'standard' sized tree. So, when used, it has the overall effect of increasing the tree's frost/freeze tolerance. No, it doesn't do much to protect the fruit, but it can mean that even if the tree doesn't fruit, it will survive.

As to more 'fruitful'...that depends. Most of the time, for most fruit, the grafted variety will come into production a couple to several years earlier than a seedling grown one. And many, if they aren't grafted onto 'dwarfing' rootstocks will live just as long as seedling grown trees (even some of the dwarfing rootstocks are long lived, so it isn't an absolute that they won't live just as long). So, couple this with the earlier start, then yes you will pretty much have at least the same if not more lifetime yield.

The main purpose of grafting is to preserve known varieties. Most pome fruits (apples, pears, quinces, etc) do not reproduce true from seed. That is , the offspring will always be something different (not quite true, but the chance of there being a 'true' seedling, especially for apples, is statistically very small). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you are always taking a chance that you won't get something useful or worth keeping...and investing 5 to 15 years to find out is usually not worth it for most people. Also, many of the pome fruits do not root easily from cutting or even work well with layering. Apples are especially difficult to nearly impossible to root from cuttings, they are also the most varied from seedling (there are several thousand known varieties of apples and maybe a couple of dozen that are both self fruitful and tend to breed true...which basically means they almost have to pollinate before the flowers open). Pears are almost as bad, but not quite...quinces and others can be rooted from cuttings, but aren't exactly easy.

The stone fruits (peaches, plums, cherries, etc) are somewhat better at breeding 'true' from seed, but there is usually enough variation that the original variety will be lost/altered.

Some of the other reasons for grafting are to produce trees varying from about 1/3 the standard size to full size. Or ones that are adapted better for a soil type (heavy/sandy, wet/dry) or to resist some disease or pest.

Also, grafting as a means of propagating fruit trees goes back at least 2000 yrs...the Romans were known to use it. It's just a means of spreading a plant variety for something that usually takes to long/too much work to do otherwise.

[elleipsis]

Bloody clever people..I bow down to you. lol. I planted 2 apple, 2 pear and 2 plums. All considered zone 3. They all have new growth and minimum to no winter kill. I am so happy that this is possible. Thanks for the info.
J