Anna,

Fasciating demonstration! Thanks for sharing.

Moses

Anna,

I have never done grafting, lots of cutting propagation, but no grafting. I remember a fascinating grafting demonstration I observed probably 40 years ago, or so. The grafting artist, a well deserved title I gave him, stressed three things for successful grafts, repeating them again and again. They are:

1. Super sharp, strong cutting tools, kept meticulously clean and razor sharp at all times are essential to success.

2. Never touch any cut or exposed plant material with your bare skin. Anything bark covered is excluded and may be handled/touched barehanded. The fluids, normal salts and oils on your skin, that come in contact with these bare surfaces can cause a take failure very easily.

3. If you cut yourself, accidentally of course, even the tiniest nick that bleeds, and your blood then comes in contact with exposed, bare, cut plant surfaces, that will cause take failures because of the salt in your blood.

Moses

Thanks for posting Moses and bluemoonlight, will definitely give this a try this winter. I will play translator ... Here are the highlights of what he said that may not have been easily discerned from the video ... in case anyone is interested..

""""""""

This type of grafting should be done when plants are fully dormant

Match drill bit size to scion wood thickness

drill not deeper than 1 centimeter

can drill on a spot were branch is removed in which case you should match size of scion to size of branch removed

can also drill on bare trunk, same procedure, start with smaller bit as a pilot hole then a bit sized to match scion.

use countersink bit to open top of hole a little more

He cleaned drilled hole with a smaller bit to get rid of any loose pieces inside hole,

***I would use a can of compressed air to blow it out with touching it, I would also wear gloves to avoid contamination graft***

trim around hole to make a smooth edge for better contact with scion

trim bark of scion wood about 1 centimeter

scion wood should have 2-3 buds/eyes

tap scion into hole, and get scion's cambium layer to line up with stock's cambium as much as possible.

top graft is easy to understand by his actions alone, need a really sharp grafting knife and be extra careful when trimming scion wood,

when done use a wound/pruning sealer to cover all cuts and joints

"""""""""

This was an apple tree and at the end he confirmed a 70 percent success on his grafts and he was satisfied with that ratio. Obviously you should make a few extra grafts in case some fail.

By reading his reply to some of the questions, he stated that this should work on all fruits but that he has not tried on all fruits and as far as he can tell the only variance to his method would be the timing of the season for doing the graft.

Obviously this man has done this a few times before and makes it look really easy

Ben,

What a helpful translation, without which success would be hit or miss. Thank you.

Moses

Ben, that is very nice of you to translate step by step.

I am planning to try that on early March that is when fig trees walking up in my garage.

Thank you Ben.