Hi Joe,

How do you keep record of your grafts on your multigrafted trees?
Do you have labels hanging from every grafted branch or do you make a drawing or a map of your trees. Or maybe it is all in your head. I couldn't do that myself...

Thanks, Sylvain.

I cut out aluminum soda cans into 1/2" by 1 3/4" strips, then punch a hole with paper puncher at one end, then place over a soft cardboard or cork board and etch on them the cultivar name using any ball point pen (with ink or no ink doesn't matter). I then use garden ties to run through the hole and tie them to the grafted branch and the main branch so that it doesn't get blown away.

Incredible, it is believed that the name will fade in 50 or 100 years.

One soda can makes about 24 free aluminum label tags.

And of course, each graft are recorded unto a spreadsheet where I track the source, where and when it was grafted, and the status through the years, including the taste of the fruits. That way, I am able to review various grafting interactions such as vigor, taste quality, compatability, unusual weather, and other factors.

Cut up aluminum pie pans and roasting pans work well too.

Good idea Skeet. The cans in France are made of steel not aluminium.
It is for easy recycling.

I use a strip of old venetian blinds I was going to throw away. Easier to cut and already shaped. And I use pencil. Last a long time. Don't use the perm felt pen. Will only last a year or 2 and will fade. And you'd wonder what have you wrote down.

I cut up the used aluminum turkey pans from Costco. The smaller ones are really cheap. They are softer than soda cans, so easier to cut and etch the name on with a ballpen, and you can create much more label strips with them. That is what I have been using these current grafting spree.

Pencil on plastic blind or faux wood is that they look neat. There is one drawback for me though. When I spray oil, the pencil marks blot out too.

I cannot thank you enough for this excellent tip!!

I was going to use the recycled mini blinds, but this is much more efficient and permanent. Thanks again!!!!!

Ummm.. we just use paint at the union and color code them

When turtleman writes about using paint coloring as identification, I think turtleman is talking about identifying the tree's root stock. Painting the union various colors is how Wilts and Newcomb identifies their under stocks. - Millet

Millets right, I think Helen's always had that done there. What we do is white wash the base up to the union (just because the AZ sun is so intense) then we color code a small band around the union, different colors for types, but then again we don't grow that many verities and only use two types of root stock here. In fact we got the idea from how WN did it and just added on to what they were doing. It also helps save our trees.