2017 Grafting thread: Open to all

[txtstorm]

Hi, All. Just catching up on the thread. It's great to read about everyone's successes and...learning opportunities we'll call them.

@Fritz77, if you've got enough seedlings to work with, I recommend trying the side grafting. Initially, I was only going to do top grafts, but had enough plants to play around with. I had some success with side grafting using the tongue method (particularly when the plants were a little larger). It's not too tricky really. I pulled the grafting clip off of one of them after a week in the healing chamber and they were good and 'stuck' to one another. I have yet to clip the scions to see if the rootstock will support them. But the grafts seem to have taken.

All of my grafted plants have been repotted and moved into the greenhouse. I'm hoping they start growing soon.

Also, the peppers I wedge grafted to the Texas Wild tomato rootstocks have taken! They're in the healing chamber still and get wilty when I open it for too long. But they seem to have taken. Freaky!

To any grafting newbie reading this thread....I went from Round 1: 0% success to Round 2: 0% Success to Round 3: about 10% success to my last couple of rounds which were about 90% successful. So, don't be discouraged if this doesn't work for you the first time. Just grow out plenty of plants to screw up on and keep reading and trying new things. You'll get it.

I'd have to say that the 'game changer' was removing most of the roots before making the grafts. My problem with the first few rounds was that the graft joints kept separating. They held together far better once most of the roots were gone. Doing this also makes the plants easy to work with on the table and your cuts will be much more precise. I think Bill's (b54red) advice was the most helpful. Thank you again, Bill!

Now to keep these little guys alive and happy in the greenhouse until mid-March or so. Fingers crossed.

Cheers everyone and good luck! ~Adam