other types of grafts...

Has anyone tried anything other than budding or chip budding on roses? Why wouldn't something like rind grafting or cleft grafting work?

I use a book called "The Grafters Handbook" by R.J.Garner.

This book was used and probably still is by students at Armidale university.

There are numerous methods of grafting illustrated. It deals with all aspects of propagation and is considered a grafters bible.

I used this book to graft stone fruit some years ago and brought old peache and plum trees back to life









from most methods, tools

I am interested in rejuvenatring plum and apple trees atm... I have a 'Green Gauge' plum that is in need of some TLC (it has PNRSV... I set an aerial layer on it today to see if I could get a small rooted section going that I could put in the 'hotbox' and then graft it onto a clean rootstock) and I have an enormous ancient apple tree (looks to be ungrafted so possibly a seedling or an own root plant of some description, or an old understock that has survived where the top section died off many many years ago) that is growing on my fenceline in my back paddock. It's mainly only shade for my animals at the moment. It's trunk is about 1m across and it's a good 20m tall... massive old tree and it makes enormous green apples but is so old and full of rot that I only get 1 or 2 apples from it each year now... if I can beat the possums to them. So... I'm interested in trying to graft them to grow them in more favourable conditons.. more cleanly. It was while looking of rinformation on grafting that I found reference to cleft grafting and rind (or bark) gratfing and thought that looked like an easy and effective method for roses... hence the question. I tried your chip budding method Bruce and have been caught off-guard as oned of the chips has sprouted a shoot already... only 4 weeks or so after doing it and I have to try and refrain from removing the budding tape. The T-buds I've been doing have been doing well too.. but the other grafts, mentioned above, can be done in late winter/early spring with dormant wood, can use skinny wood on relatively thick understocks and you can graft multiple buds onto the understock as well as multiple scions around the perimetre of the understock if it's wide enough... I gave the rind grafting a go today and it seems easy enough though it is the wrong time of the year for it (well... wrong time for stone fruit.. not sure about roses... this is when we do our budding so maybe it is the right time to try this) and I don't have any grafting wax... I used vaseline to block out the air... will probably need to reapply it a few times. Haven't tried the cleft graftng yet and saddle grafting looks intersting too...

I was told by an elderly man here that you graft fruit trees on to some sort of old plum and that we have this in our Orchard. To me these plants look short weak and spindly really. Non productive. So really it doesn't make much sense but I will look into it more and maybe try grafting one of our nice peaches on to it. If it doesn't work then it doesn't. But i was thinking of cleft grafting to start with as it gives more contact with the cadmium layer. We have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Simon try Kerf grafting your fruit trees which is fully detailed in Garners book.

There are a number of rootstocks used, most of my old fruit trees were on an apple tree. Peaches were definately on apple but never had anything to do with the plums on whatever rootstock.