Healing after grafting

[AtomApple]

not talking about my finger on the 1 slip out of 50 rootstocks .

I’ve read grafts should be stored anywhere from 2-12 weeks to heal. I currently have them in my garage (door closed) and the temps have been between 30-60 for a while now (Minnesota). I have 3 garbage bags that I put the RS in, filled with wood chips and watered. I’m just checking that I am on the right coarse. Any suggestions?
i will plant in a nursery in my back yard for the 1st year with most of these. Should I do that when (if) they start breaking buds or leafing?

Thanks
atom

 

[Chainsaw]

Atom, I'm new at this game also. What I learned the hard way last year that once they leaf out and are planted hard freezes kill the leaves. Some made more leaves, some didn't. So my answer to your when to plant question is one day after the last hard freeze. Yes it is a gamble as to when that day is. If I was going to graft only 50 to 100 rootstock I would consider having a beer refrigerator in the garage to keep the grafts dormant beyond last freeze dates. I am trying to do that with coolers this year as it would take a lot of refrigerators to hold as many rootstocks as I've grafted. I don't know if the coolers will work but so far it looks ok.

Just an observation from another new to grafting--Grafting high on the rootstock as yours are makes it more difficult to cover the plants once planted if one of those rogue freeze nights happen. I don't know if there is anything wrong with grafting so high but it does not seem to be the norm and it will make for a lot of trimming branches off of the rootstock. Good luck with your nursery--do you have any pictures of your nursery area?

 

[BuckSnort]

I would highly suggest reading through the following thread:

“2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED”​

I learned a lot from paging through the info there. After grafting I keep my trees in the basement in sawdust until the weather turns and they can be safely moved outside. Then a gradual introduction to direct sun before planting in the garden has worked well for me.

 

[chickenlittle]

Ideally you want them to stay dormant until you plant out and you don't want a hard frost to damage the healing graft union or newly growing leaves. Whatever you can do to keep them cool and in the dark will help. I try to time my grafting so that I have 3-4 weeks to my typical last frost and plant out as soon as the forecast looks safe. I did all my grafting in the last week. Right now they are in my warm basement. My typical last frost is May 10. Long range forecast looks clear after this weekend but I'll wait until next weekend and decide whether to plant them out in the nursery or wait another week.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Not saying there is only one way to do it, but we hold everything in a dark room for 2 weeks at 50-60 degrees and coincide that end of the 2 weeks with our last average frost date. A light frost wont hurt them.

Side not when you graft your trees you only need one viable bud on the scion, but most people go for 2 just to have a back up. Looks like you have a few buds on each scion. More leaves are going to require more water movement from the root stock to keep them alive, I wouldnt necessarily go back and cut them down, but something to keep in mind for the future. Most of the time the root stock is cut back to within 3-4" of the top most root as well prior to grafting. Probably not an issue for you unless you grafted those onto M111 then you will have a lot of exposed burr knots when they start to grow.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I'm in Minnesota and I do the same thing. I'll leave them in my garage for two+ weeks and then plant them. I may keep them in the garage longer if the forecast is below freezing

 

[AtomApple]

I would highly suggest reading through the following thread:

“2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED”​

I learned a lot from paging through the info there. After grafting I keep my trees in the basement in sawdust until the weather turns and they can be safely moved outside. Then a gradual introduction to direct sun before planting in the garden has worked well for me.

I have read it. It’s a lot to reread.

 

[AtomApple]

Not saying there is only one way to do it, but we hold everything in a dark room for 2 weeks at 50-60 degrees and coincide that end of the 2 weeks with our last average frost date. A light frost wont hurt them.

Side not when you graft your trees you only need one viable bud on the scion, but most people go for 2 just to have a back up. Looks like you have a few buds on each scion. More leaves are going to require more water movement from the root stock to keep them alive, I wouldnt necessarily go back and cut them down, but something to keep in mind for the future. Most of the time the root stock is cut back to within 3-4" of the top most root as well prior to grafting. Probably not an issue for you unless you grafted those onto M111 then you will have a lot of exposed burr knots when they start to grow.

These are antonovka. I ordered 1/4” , but they came in pretty thick. I tried to graft where the Scion and RS size matched up the best. Some of my Scion were pretty small, so I cleft those. I used the tongue graft when possible.

 

[AtomApple]

I'm in Minnesota and I do the same thing. I'll leave them in my garage for two+ weeks and then plant them. I may keep them in the garage longer if the forecast is below freezing

Yeah, they usually say Mother’s Day for planting here, but Memorial Day for sensitive plants like tomatoes & peppers.

I’m seeing all my other (yard) trees leaf out and I’m getting anxious. Patience grasshopper,lol.

 

[cavey]

You can use a large coleman like cooler, couple blocks of ice on the bottom bedded in saw dust, I keep the saw dust damp/wet... use the cooler as a mini cold room in the garage often toss a packing blanket on the cooler with the cooler sitting on the floor. Its where I store the roostock till Im ready to graft and where I put them back into after grafting. I do a a week or so in there to heal/rest. Done that for years.

 

[AtomApple]

Not saying there is only one way to do it, but we hold everything in a dark room for 2 weeks at 50-60 degrees and coincide that end of the 2 weeks with our last average frost date. A light frost wont hurt them.

Side not when you graft your trees you only need one viable bud on the scion, but most people go for 2 just to have a back up. Looks like you have a few buds on each scion. More leaves are going to require more water movement from the root stock to keep them alive, I wouldnt necessarily go back and cut them down, but something to keep in mind for the future. Most of the time the root stock is cut back to within 3-4" of the top most root as well prior to grafting. Probably not an issue for you unless you grafted those onto M111 then you will have a lot of exposed burr knots when they start to grow.

Thanks for the tip. I wasn’t sure because some varieties or scions have large nice looking buds. while others have little tiny ones, that I worry are underdeveloped. If more than two start leafing, I will pinch them off.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Thanks for the tip. I wasn’t sure because some varieties or scions have large nice looking buds. while others have little tiny ones, that I worry are underdeveloped. If more than two start leafing, I will pinch them off.

Bud size can vary significantly among varieties. In my experience if it looks like a bud to the naked eye they are viable.

 

[John-W-WI]

I would highly suggest reading through the following thread:

“2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED”​

I learned a lot from paging through the info there. After grafting I keep my trees in the basement in sawdust until the weather turns and they can be safely moved outside. Then a gradual introduction to direct sun before planting in the garden has worked well for me.

Good suggestion.. Here's a direct link: (I think)

2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

We had a bunch of steel rods laying around that are probably 24-32" long that we use. They're about 3/4" in diameter. Tposts are fine if you have them. If you have to pay retail they can be pricy. We have a bunch of t-posts but we save them for places we really need them. Thanks Ed for the...

habitat-talk.com

-John

 

[PoorSand]

I kept mine in my windowless, slightly heated garage for the first four weeks. I put them into air-pruning three gallon pots right after grafting them, or into blue Walmart bags for the rootstock with roots too large for the pots. I used 52% Composted Pine Bark, 16% Long Fibered Sphagnum Peat Moss, 16% Composted Rice Hulls, and 16% Coarse Sand, fortified with 10 lbs. per yard of 7-8 month controlled released fertilizer along with micronutrients for the potting mix. I moved them outside a week ago. We have had a couple nights of 29 degree lows since then. The trees look fine. A week ago, 53% of them had new growth from the scions. As of yesterday, that number had risen to 73%. The Kerr were the first to bud out. Then the Ide's of March. Then the Enterprise and GoldRush. Next the Florina. The Galarina and Liberty are lagging behind.

 

[chickenlittle]

One nursery source I read long ago (but can't find now) suggested trimming the roots to 1-2" long when bench grafting. I typically trim mine a bit longer 4-5" just so they don't cling together in the bucket I'm letting them heal in.

 

[James P. Bipps]

I just completed my first 5 benchgrafts ever. Now what I do with them? I plan to plant them in my garden for the first year and then transplant them to their final location in 2022. I plan on keeping them in my garage until I plant them. Now they are simply in wet newspapers in the 5 gallon bucket. Should I put them in garden soil or will wet newspaper work? Do I acclimate them for 1-2 weeks or am I looking for growth before I plant them?

 

[DrDirtNap]

I’m not an expert but here’s the way I’ve been doing it. Works well for me. I put my benchgrafts all together in a bucket of wet sawdust. I put the bucket in a black trash bag and tie it up at the top. Not airtight but tight enough to keep the moisture inside and to not allow any light inside. I then place the bucket in my garage which is the coolest area I have. You want the the newly grafted rootstock to stay cool and not get hot while the grafts heal. I don’t look at mine for at least a week. When I see the scions starting to push green buds, which ideally for me would be two weeks after the grafting process, I pull them out of the bucket and pot each one individually. I’ll grow each one in a pot for the summer where I can water and fertilize them and then in the fall/winter I plant them in the field. Like I said there are many ways to do this but this works for me where I live in the south.


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[DrDirtNap]

Here’s my benchgrafts from this spring. I only did a few. I’m running out of room for any more trees. I went 10/10 with the Dolgo rootstock from Bluehills.

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[H20fwler]

If my grafts have any "wiggle" to them after a few weeks I will try and re-graft them...sometimes it works.
We have had very cool temps here this spring, I planted this year’s class of 2021 that I grafted late Febuary out to the nursery box a month ago. So far over half are starting to leaf out...been a slow spring lots of trees in the woods are still breaking bud.

 

[Bark River]

I potted mine right after I grafted and put them in the garage for a week (late March in Wisconsin so it was cold) I only grafted a few so I brought them in after a week and they took about 3 weeks to start pushing leaves. Proud to say that I have 100% success on all of my grafts this year and this was my first attempt at grafting! I’ve got 5 Ides of March and I took some prunings from some Arkansas Black that I planted this year so I have 8 total. All look good and are on Blue Hill Dolgo rootstock. Now that the frosts are done here they will be planted in their permanent homes in the next couple weeks.