Citrus Growers Forum

jcaldeira · Posted: Tue 08 May, 2012 4:27 am

Beargraft wrote:

Well, as I said in my previous post, I bought the chinese tool. I went ahead and made between 10 to 15 grafts on citrus (have to count them...) They seemed to match pretty good at first so I did the rest of them utilizing the tool with the exception of 2 or 3 that were done with a knife (utility blade).
The tree is a Myers lemon.

The grafts were duplicated (several of the same type.

Types:

Sweet tangerine small thin rind.
Sweet tangerine med easy peel rind
Ponderosa Lemon
either Lisbon or Eureka lemon...couldnt tell which
Navel oranges from 3 different trees and the oranges are different from each other...all of them do have the belly button on them.

Anyway, now time will tell if any of them take. Ill count them and let you know the success rate...I am hoping for at least one of each type to take... Shocked

Hopefully.

Now I have to move on to my Apricot tree and I have lots of them to do on it. Peaches, Apricots, Nectarines, and plums ...

I also have to finish off the pears...Started the grafts a bit ago but have not finished with all the varieties.. and stuff is beginning to bloom..

Then I have to graft a small mexican guava with some pineapple guava. Next year or later on, i plan to also add some strawberry and lemon guavas to it.

How did the tool work out for you?

John

baumgrenze · Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Palo Alto, CA

Here are the tools I use:

The knife is a pre-1950's reground #489 Edge Brand Solingen steel hunting knife I confiscated from a Boy Scout who broke the blade mistreating it. It holds an edge for a long time and fits my hand very comfortably. I use it for all my grafting cuts.

The bark lifter is simply a scrap of stainless steel I bent against a piece of pipe and then ground to shape on a sander, polished to a smooth edge, and then mounted in a scrap of wood.

I made this tool from a broken 1/8" aircraft drill bit. I annealed it, shaped it, ground it, then rehardened and tempered it. Working with this small a piece of metal is simple. You can use a propane torch as your forge.

I use it for flattening the surface of the accepting branch when I do Joe Real's bark graft. I slip it back up between the bark flaps, engage the sharp edge on the wood of the branch and draw it out to the end.

See:

link

I heard the talk he gave to the CRFG.

baumgrenze