By joereal at 2009-02-18


Inspect which side the bark of the branch and scionwood align better. Technically, you would align the cambiums, but for closely matched scion diameter, by aligning the bark surface, you would surely align the cambiums. Cambium alignment is what makes grafting successful. If you inserted the stick in the middle, it will not take and would most likely fail. So making sure the bark of the scionwood and the branch is aligned at least on one side. One side may align better than another, so check both sides.



By joereal at 2009-02-18

In this case, I have perfect alighnment on the side opposite my hand.

By joereal at 2009-02-18

Press the cleft together to hold the scionwood in place and wrap the union with grafting tape, starting from the top of the cleft.




By joereal at 2009-02-18

Continue wrapping down.



By joereal at 2009-02-18


Wrap the union an inch past the bottom of the cleft, and then wrap again, spiraling upwards to cover the cleft and the exposed cut.

By joereal at 2009-02-18

Then cut off the extra scionwood. Leave about two or three nodes where buds will sprout in the direction that you want. Remember to cut the extra scionwood at 45 deg angle to deflect the rainwater.

I don't limit the number of buds on the scionwood nowadays, it's an extra step, unless I want to do it for aesthetic reasons. Contrary to the suggestions of experts, I grafted 1/2 inch long up to a 2-ft long scionwood, and they all are successful if sufficiently covered or sealed, it doesn't really matter. Take it from experience

By joereal at 2009-02-18

The finished product! At this point, you can reinforce the union with rubber band and cover the rubber band with grafting tape.

By joereal at 2009-02-18

Then paint the graft union and the scionwood with Doc Farwell's grafting sealant. I no longer use Doc Farwell's graft sealer because I always messed up the brush, and it is a great amount of cleaning just to do a few graft. Instead, I simply continue to wrap the scionwood completely with grafting tape. It is less messy for me. But Doc Farwell
s sealer works well, but I have to warn you that the paint will be there for a long-long time. It is good because you can color code your graft, and it is bad, because, you may not like the sight of jagged paint down the line on your branches. Depends upon what you want. Both methods work well to keep the scionwood from drying out until they take.

By joereal at 2009-02-18

Make sure to label the graft. In this case, I simply wrote on a garden tie. I no longer recommend this, the marking pen labels would last only for half a year. I now write on aluminum tags, cut out from aluminum pans or soda cans, and they last forever. Make sure that your label doesn't get blown away by the wind, so better secure it too. I lost a lot of tags from the strong winds.

By joereal at 2009-02-18

Spring cometh, and they start to show life.



By joereal at 2009-02-18

This particular demo branch has produced plenty of excellent tasting fruits for me and continue to do so. Perhaps I will post update on its fruit or how it is now. This grafted branch contain other different cultivars grafted on it too.