An early wakeup - Jujube and Persimmon -Transferred from QDMA forum

[yoderjac]

Well I hope your jujube scion is now making a little bush. How did your root cuttings do? I have two tigertooth jujube's I planted last year. Once they become established I would like to try growing from root cuttings myself

Out of about a dozen or so root cuttings I tried this year, I got only two that made it. I'm still trying to figure out how to increase my success rate with them.

Out of a about 20 dormant scions, it looks like I might have 1 that rooted. They all leafed out and then eventually the leaves withered and died. One of them had a second set of leaves form this fall. No bush yet. The leaf has gotten slightly larger. They are all starting to go dormant now so I'm mulching them in.

If your Tigertooth were grown on their own roots, I think trying root cuttings is the best way to propagate rootstock or even trees. I plan to use mine for rootstock to add other varieties of Jujube by grafting without having to worry about thicketing. I start with 4" to 6" pencil sized root cuttings. That size seemed to work the best for me.

Good Luck,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Well, it's that time again. This year, changed my technique for overwintering based on the issues I had with the persimmons last year. I took some of my persimmons and mulched them in outside in a flower box adjoining my south facing wall. The rest, I put in cardboard boxes (container and all) and filled the boxes with mulch. I then put the boxes in my attached but unheated garage.

I put two groups in the garage. The first were a bunch of tiny persimmons still in 18s. I figured they were the most susceptible to cold damage to the roots. The second group were the persimmons and Jujube large enough to graft.

I figured by tonight they had had enough chill hours, so I brought the grafting sized persimmons and Jujube in from the garage and put them under lights. These are mostly in 1 gal rootbuilder IIs with three in high 5s. I transplanted two from the 1 gal container to 3 gal tonight, but I'm thinking that I may want to make sure the grafts take before I bother transplanting them.

My Plan:


I gave one of the Tigertooth Jujube that I started from root cuttings last year to the guy who I swapped some persimmon scions with. While the other scions he sent were all good, the ones I really wanted, Nikita's Gift, all got mold by bark grafting time and none took. He will be sending me more Nikita's Gift scions when I'm ready to try whip and tongue grafting these seedlings. Hopefully since I'll be using them immediately, mold won't be an issue.

I'm also planning on ordering some other jujube variety scions from Roger Meyer for grafting this tigertooth root stock.

I'm planning on letting both the persimmons and jujube get some heat units before I attempt to graft. Right now I'm targeting early January for all the bench grafting.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Wow! These trees have only been indoors a few days now. The Jujube buds are already turning green! I know the picture of the Jujube branch is fuzzy but you can clearly see a green bud:

 

[yoderjac]

Chill hours are between 35 and 45, correct? But does this mean the entire plant? Just roots? Just stem?

I'm wondering because I recently pulled a few hazelnut suckers. Some already have some somewhat substantial roots, and I'm wondering if I should stick them with my cuttings on my DIY heating mat, or if I should just let them sit on my unheated glassed in porch. They need 1500 chill hours, and they're at about 550 right now, so they need more. I just didn't know what the best approach was!

I'm glad to see you figured out root cuttings. I tried some with RO dogwoods, and they didn't take. They seem to be somewhat of a different ballgame.

I'll certainly be following this thread!

I think chill hours for Jujube are higher than that; probably in the 200-400 range. Chill hours are referring to a planted tree, but the temperature range refers to air temperature. Keep in mind there are several chill hour models so the numbers may vary a bit. There is an air temperature range where 1 wall clock hour counts as a full chill hour and another temperature range where a wall clock hour counts as a partial chill our and an outer temperature band that does not count toward chill hours. I think that 35-45 degree range is generally recognized as the 1:1 band.

If I were you, I would not heat the roots during chilling except to keep them from freezing if containerized. I'm providing bottom heat for the yellow twig dogwood dormant cuttings in a room that is about 50 degrees with no artificial light (just a window in the room). My hope is that the bottom heat encourages rooting without encouraging top growth. Next month I'll move them in under lights. The only other plants I'm providing bottom heat to is my pawpaws based on some KSU research. Basically, they found that if you have sufficient water, bottom heat at 90 degrees F provides faster germination and increased vegetative growth. I did not find the research until they had been planted for about a month or so and were starting to germinate. They do seem to be growing faster since I've added the bottom heat.

I'm not sure I've figured out root cuttings for Jujube yet. I'm trying again this year. We will see if I do any better than previous years.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks!

I won't worry about the hazels just yet. I'll just keep them on my porch. Per your advice, I'm doing the same thing with the dogwoods and some black currants. Although after looking up chill hours it seems that the black currants need a pretty significant amount of chill hours (I think I saw 1000, but I'm not sure).

As for the dogwoods, I don't think we really need to be worried about the chill hours. From what I've gathered, chill hours are much more important for fruit trees, like your jubjube. Now, I'm sure that they need some, but I wouldn't think that it would be that many, judging by the native range (the USDA native range). Maybe something with fruit trees having to invest more energy into their reproductive bodies?

As always, thanks for the help!

 

[yoderjac]

Jujube are definitely starting to leaf out:

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

As some of you know, I've been working getting persimmons on my property grafted with enough different varieties to have them dropping from September through January. I had great bark grafting success last spring largely due to the generosity of folks using these forums that were willing to share scions.

One of the varieties I was especially interested in was Nikita's Gift. It is a hybrid between Kaki and American. Some folks say it drops its fruit like American and others say it does not. Well, there is only one way for me to find out for sure.

I was able to get some scions last year from a source, but they all got moldy (only ones that did). One still had green cambium so I tried to bark graft with it, but it failed.

So I brought some young persimmons that I grew from seed inside to brake dormancy early. Today, I got more NG scions in the mail. I gave my source caliper reading from my trees so I could get a good fit for whip and tongue. grafting.

Here is what I did:

The first seedling before I started:

After matching a scion diameter, I cut off the seedling:

Next, I used parafilm-M to seal the scion:

Continued...

 

[yoderjac]

Next I did the normal whip & tongue cuts on both scion and seedling:

I then applied a little dry rooting hormone to both pieces. As I understand it, it promotes callusing which is much occur to heal the graft.

I then fit them together:

Continued...

 

[yoderjac]

Finally, I used parafilm-M to seal the joint. With a few of the grafts, I didn't think there was enough pressure, so I added a little electrical tape over the parafilm to add a little pressure.

I ended up grafting 14 persimmons with NG scions. Here that are along with the Jujube.

The jujube are just beginning to leaf out. I have jujube scions on order from Roger Meyer. I'm hoping to get them in a week or so. They say you can whip & tongue graft about a month before persimmons leaf out. Based on previous years, I'd say my persimmons are about a month behind Jujube so I think my timing is good.

I had some NG scions left over. I stored them in the crisper, but based on last year, I don't know if they will make it until bark grafting time. Hopefully some of these trees will take off.

I had transplanted some into 3 gal rootbuilder IIs but I decided to wait for the rest. I figure there won't be much root growth until they leaf out. If the grafts don't take, I save a container and the mix. If they do, I can either transplant them and keep them another summer, or maybe even plant them directly from the 1 gal RB2s. I'm not sure if that would be too much shock . If they leaf out in another month or so, that would be mid February. If I plant them in the field, it would be mid-April so the grafts would have had 2 months to grow beforehand.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Grafting looks good. My personal opinion would be to keep them at the house and plant them next year while they are still dormant. If you want to plant them this spring then I would recommend a good tree tube. Just about every persimmon that I planted this spring that was tubed survived. The ones I didn't tube all died. However, we had an extremely dry spring.

I will clearly be doing that with some of them. I already have 4 of them transplanted into 3 gal RB2s. Those I'll keep over the summer for sure and plant while dormant.

For the ones in the 1 gal RB2s, if I decided to keep them through the summer, I'll need to transplant them in the 3 gal containers. It is a lot more work to plant from a 3 gal than a 1 gal. It also means I need to overwinter them again next year. All the persimmons I've planted so far have been directly from the 18s and the loss rate has been high.

Have you planted any from 1 gal RBs yet?

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I had some more persimmons that I mulched in for the winter outside that I judged too small to graft. I brought them inside about 10 days ago. Since I had the extra NG scions, I decided to try bench grafting some of them. They may not have been indoors long enough, but I figured I just do 5 of them today anyway.

Since they were smaller in diameter, I used a cleft (or wedge) graft instead of a W&T graft. These only require 1 side to be aligned, but I did my best to match them and align both sides.

There is still no sign of any of the original W&T grafts taking yet but it is still real early.

Thanks,

jack

 

[yoderjac]

I think I might be starting to see results. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture, but the top bud on this Nikita's Gift is turning green and swelling. I think I see this happening on several others as well:

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Jack, how old is that persimmon seedling that you're using as rootstock?

It is kind of odd. It is about 1 1/2 growing seasons old. I started persimmons from seed in RM 18s on my deck during the summer. Late in the summer I transplanted them to 1 gal RBIIs. I was foolish and did not mulch them in that winter.

In the middle of the winter I brought them in and warmed them up and tried grafting some of them (you can see this in the beginning of the thread). They were al too small to graft, but I wanted the experience of bench grafting. I used wedge grafts on most of them. They all failed. At the time, I thought it was the fact that they were so young that they had not properly hardened. That may have been part of the problem The thing I did not realize at the time is that there were probably hurt most by the roots freezing.

Some of the trees that I did not graft died but some survived and eventually leafed out. Of those that had the top growth die, some produced new growth from the root system in the 1 gal pots.

This past spring I took one of the trees that survived and transplanted it into a 3 gal RBII. (I thought it was a high 5 at first which is what I ordered, but subsequent I found they sent me the wrong thing and it is actually a 3 gal). Because the root system was not constrained, it grew much faster than the others that survived in 1 gal RBIIs.

The tall tree that you see pictured in the grafting demonstration above was this tree. It is about 1 1/2 season old where 1 full season was in a 3 gal RBII. The diameter is about the size of my index finger at the base. I had to go quite high up in the taper to match the scion size.

The tree you see in the picture with the green bud is one that survived but grew in a 1 gal RB II. I transplanted that one into a 3 gal RB II just a week before I grafted it. It is about pencil size in diameter.

Here are my conclusion so far:

1) You must keep roots from freezing when overwintering RM trees in some way.

2) If you start persimmons outdoors, they will probably be too small to graft until they are 2 seasons old because that first growing season is so short.

3) If you start your seeds under lights in doors and transplant into 1 gal RBIIs at 12-16 weeks, I think the trees will be standard bench grafting size (about a pencil in diameter) after the first growing season.

4) In my area (zone 7A) you can bring persimmons indoors between Christmas an New Year and warm them up as they will have had sufficient chill hours.

5) I would probably let them warm up for about a month or so before grafting. It can take over 2 months for them to leaf out (it is based on head hours).

I'll stop there with conclusions. I'm also grafting some trees that are much smaller in diameter than recommended. I want to see how small you can go with grafting them. I plan to keep some of them for another season after transplanting them to 3 gal RBIIs. Some others, I'm going to try to plan in the field directly from the 1 gal RBIIs this spring given the grafts take. I want to see if that extra season in 3 gal pots is worth the effort.

Long answer to short question....

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks Jack, that's really helpful.

I'm going to try planting persimmon seedlings where I want the trees located and graft them in the field in the future. It sounds like I should plan on starting the grafting as early as 1-to-2 years after planting the seedling.

I tried planting persimmon seedlings last year, but had 100% failure. I blame my technique (I tried to dibble them in last year) and so I'll invest more time and dig holes this year. I'm also going to try a different vendor just in case that was the problem.

Thanks again for taking the time to document and share your learnings.

Actually, that is a bit different. What I'm doing is bench grafting container grown seedlings indoors. When you use air pruning containers and provide good nutrition and water, trees grow much faster than the do in the field for me.

I'm doing the same thing as you are (in addition to what you see in this thread). I have such great success with bark grafting, I think it makes more sense just to plant multiple trees in relatively close proximity and then wait until they hit about 1" in diameter and bark graft.

I'm taking two approaches. With one approach, I'm spending the time and effort to grow containerized tree and W&T graft them early (this thread) and then planting them in the field at a strategic location. The second approach is to simply plant lots of small seedlings or direct seed at strategic location and then cull trees that don't make it and let the rest hit about an inch in diameter before bark grafting.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I agree with Jack--I don't think you will gain a whole lot trying to do a whip and tongue or cleft graft at an early age rather than waiting till they are 1" in diameter and then doing a bark graft. The bark graft has such a high rate of success and by then the tree will have a very well developed root system.

JMO

todd

 

[yoderjac]

Well, things are not looking good with my bench grafting attempts and I need some advice.

The first tree to produce a leaf seen in the picture in a previous post had the leaf dry up and die. I presume this was the typical case where the scion buds out using its own energy before the graft has a chance to bond.

I have several other trees that started producing buds after this first tree. In most cases I'm seeing the same thing. First the bud on the scion swells, turns green and begins to open and then seems to stall. Next, some tiny bud on the rootstock over takes it. Here is an example picture of what is happening:

So, what do you think I should do?

A. - Nothing...just watch and see what happens.

B. - Pinch off the bud on the rootstock to encourage the tree to put its energy in the graft.

C. - Give up on the graft and keep the bud so I don't lose the tree then try again later.

D. - Something else?

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Wow! No one has any opinions??? You don't catch this group speechless very often...

 

[yoderjac]

Jack,

I read the post and looked at the options to your situation. My opinion is based upon one fact.

I got everything to learn about grafting and right now I am so far beneath your knowledge level & process.

So others might be like me - without any idea.

Sorry, wish I could help.
wbpdeer

bark graft might be kind tough on those small seedlings. I know you've had luck before with the cleft graft. I think that would be the graft I would try.

todd

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks guys. I'm leaning more and more in that direction. You may be right that I tried grafting too soon. I guess I was anxious.

When I looked at that same tree in the picture today, the scion bud seems to be losing some of the green color (not a good sign) and the rootstock is leafing out even more. I'm thinking I'll just wait and watch and not try to remove the rootstock buds. I do have some NG scions left but they are all too small to W&T graft on the root stock. I'll wait until they leaf out well and try cutting the rootstock much lower and bark grafting a small scion if my scions keep without mold.

I appreciate the perspective...

Thanks,

jack

 

[yoderjac]

bark graft might be kind tough on those small seedlings. I know you've had luck before with the cleft graft. I think that would be the graft I would try.

todd