I’ve said it before and I will say it again… a lot, I’m not an expert. This is my initial look at Grafting without having done it yet.
Just imagine having one tree produce peaches, plums and cherries or 3 different kinds of apples or a pecan being able to bear nuts without requiring 2 separate (male and female) trees or an established tree giving a jump start to production.
Grafting is the process of attaching a cutting of one tree to a rooted tree either as a limb, replaced at or just above root stock. This is done by exposing the cambium layer/vascular tissues of two different trees or exposing the cambium layer on the primary and harvesting a bud of another then joining the two together with a hormone and grafting compound (wax, rosin, natural oils) followed by taping/wrapping to protect the exposed woods.
The primary techniques I have found are Whipping, Budding, Cleft and Stubbing. Other techniques I have read about seem to be variations or combinations of those identified.
While not set in stone this doesn’t work with every species and typically only works if the 2 plants are from the same family.
Advantages of Grafting are use of disease-resistant rootstocks, small footprint diversity, and for having both male and female of one species on one graft for plants that require pollination in order to flower, bear fruit or nuts.
If you have some good knowledge on grafting, I’d love to hear from you or even interview you so please contact me via email mrredbeard AT MickRed dot com or call and leave a message at (747) 333-8145
More to come…..
Terms
Scion – a cutting from a woody plant
Rootstock – roots from an established plant
Grafting compound – sealant/protector
Grafting wax – bee’s wax/paraffin/tallow
Rooting Hormone – Salicylic acid that can be obtained from willow buds (highest and most effective concentration)/bark/leaves and is the active ingredient in Aspirin. Supposedly if you add honey it acts as a antiseptic/antibacterial that aids rooting and grafting.
Related Projects on Instructables
[phpInstrucatblesKeyword]keyword-grafting[/phpInstrucatblesKeyword]References
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/grafting.html
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/propagation/grafting.html
http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6971
http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/boulder/horticulture/pdf/Introduction%20to%20Fruit%20Tree%20Grafting.pdf
http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/UJ255.pdf
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