General information and discussion about cultivating fruit-bearing plants, trees, flowers and ornamental plants.
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February 9, 2015 | #1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Sterling Heights, MI Zone 6a/5b
Posts: 1,302
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Grafting stone fruits
This year to expand my orchard I'm going to try and graft 6 different peach cultivars and 6 plum cultivars unto my existing trees. I'm new at it so only expect about half to take. That's OK, I'll try again next time!
So I'm going to have a bunch of Frankenfruit trees in the yard. It's going to be tough as I have to sacrifice a lot of fruit to add new grafts. What i do is each tree has 3 or 4 scaffolds. I will cut the scaffold down and grow the new scaffold with the graft. if it doesn't take, I'll try again on the same scaffold in a year. the scaffolds I cut off will have fruit, lot's of fruit argh! Oh well, it's good practice. Once i finish I will have peach and plum ripening throughout the growing season. And many types, yellow flesh, white flesh, firm and melting flesh types. All of them are the best of the best as far as plums and peaches go. Some are super rare and hard to find. All from other growers, none purchased. Like we trade tomato seeds. Fruit tree growers trade scion wood. With a small backyard it is the only way to increase fruit types. A friend of mine in Canada, Konrad has an older tree, this is what it looks like. A plum tree. I plan to keep the trees smaller myself. But it shows the idea of making multigrafted trees |
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