"Vascular Flow" and Grafting

[aclum]

Hi,

I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology or not, so please bear with me .

When one does a no-root graft (Delerium's technique) in tomatoes, etc., or "stenting" (?? ) in the case of roses, or "interstock" grafting in the case of fruit trees (or what I've been calling "stacked" grafts in tomatoes) .......

Does it make a difference how the rootless stem or trunk section used for the graft is oriented? In other words, is there an "up" and "down" to a stem section in terms of nutrient transport, etc. Do I need to maintain the stem section in the same orientation (original root end down), or can I just position it randomly?

Hope this makes sense!!

Thanks,
Anne

[JamesL]

Anne,
Perfect sense. That's a great question. I did all mine "right side up". But was kinda wondering as well what would happen if the rootstock stem was flipped. Are you going to try it? And has anybody else done it? If anyone has, (probably Delerium!) and I am sure he will read this and answer.
I had some real shorty rootstock stems, several were only an inch long. I could have easily flipped one. I have some more to do, will definitely do one this weekend even if it is purely sacrificial.

[b54red]

Anne what technique are you using for your grafting now? It is raining today and I'm thinking of trying to do some with no healing chamber since I have a lot of scions and rootstock left over. The extremely high humidity should help keep them from wilting too fast; but I don't know whether to bottom water the grafts or just go with the damp DE. I will be using mainly rootstock with roots and then placed in moistened Optisorb; but I will do a few without roots. I haven't had much luck with the no root method yet because of the high incidence of rot that happens due to so much stem being in the damp DE. I just think we have too much crap floating around in our air here; but I keep trying. The DE has really cut down on the rot compared to what happened last year using potting soil as the medium; but it is still a problem.

Bill

[aclum]

Hi James,

I haven't tried the "reversed" rootstock yet - so glad you're going to experiment with it this weekend ! I'm still in the process of replacing various plants that I lost in the herbicide/russet mite episode discussed in another thread and right now I don't have enough extra seedlings or the replacement varieties to experiment with TOO much . BTW, for this round of grafting I'll be using the estamino rootstock from the seeds you sent me . The stems are quite long so I think I can get 2 or 3 grafts out of each estamino seedling. I was planning to cut the stem up in sections to soak before grafting and I was wondering if I could jus toss all of them in one container of water at random. But until I hear from someone who's done it or who can give me a definitive answer, I think I'd better make sure I keep them all oriented in the same direction.

Bill,

For this round of grafting, I'm planning to use moistened root riot cloning or rooting cubes in the root riot tray under a humidity dome. The seedlings I'm using for the grafts were all started in DE. I've successfully used the RR cubes for grafts before and now I'm seeing if I can do it in a more "organized" manner.

Offhand, it seems like if you presoak your scion and rootstock as Delerium does, with your high humidity, you might very well get away without the humidity dome. Worth a try for sure!

To both of you - good luck and have fun with the grafting - and I hope your weather improves soon!!

Anne

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by JamesL

Anne,
Perfect sense. That's a great question. I did all mine "right side up". But was kinda wondering as well what would happen if the rootstock stem was flipped. Are you going to try it? And has anybody else done it? If anyone has, (probably Delerium!) and I am sure he will read this and answer.
I had some real shorty rootstock stems, several were only an inch long. I could have easily flipped one. I have some more to do, will definitely do one this weekend even if it is purely sacrificial.

James i haven't tried it. But i bet it will work but any type of growth will probably end up like a upside down tomato plant from the rootstock side - grow downwards then curve upwards towards the sun. That's just my guess.

[Worth1]

All parts interstock undestock and scions need to be oriented in the proper direction from everything I have read.

Worth

[aclum]

Hi,

Thanks for the responses!

Not too surprisingly, when I put my snippets of stem all in proper orientation or alignment in my little container of water, they floated every which way so I ended up having no idea which end was the "root end" . But, undaunted, I went ahead and did 3 grafts. Odds are that at least one rootstock snippet is pointing in the wrong direction - so I guess I am "experimenting" in a way.

I've attached a couple of photos of the grafts I did - a close-up of the grafts (Berkeley Tie-Die Heart, Amazon Chocolate PL, and JD's Special-C Tex, and a longer view showing the container of Estamino Seedlings from which I selected one for grafting. From the one Estamino seedling, I got the three grafts plus the top of the Estamino seedling that I placed in one of the cubes in hopes of getting a "second life" out of it.

The rootstock snippet is so short that the silicon clip needs some sort of support. In the past, I've used small bamboo skewers, but I was feeling lazy today so I just sort of pressed the clips into the cube to hold things in place. I'll probably end up having to trim growth coming up from the rootstock once things are in the garden, but that's something I can deal with. I think, though, next time, I'll try to go with a bit larger stem diameter and try to keep the graft union elevated above the "soil line."

And now I wait.......

Anne

[JamesL]

Anne,
Did you beat me to it again?. Estamino - 2 questions, 1. Was it a slow grower for you? 2. How did you get long stems? Mine seemed to be short and somewhat stocky, especially compared to Maxifort.
Good pix btw, and at least half of my clips looked like yours in my first couple of rounds, resting right on top of the DE.

Worth and Delerium,
I can't handicap this one. If it does work, I bet we do get some strange result.

Will let you know in a week. I did 2 of them tonight along with a handful of others.
I did take pics, and I will hopefully post them here Sunday night. Left the cotyledons on one, they look funny upside down.
Dester on Estamino (Destamino! ) and Maxifort on Maxifort (M&M)
I was struggling with stem matches but not on those 2 grafts. They were perfect (if I do say so myself).

[aclum]

Hi James,

Yes, the Estamino grew really slowly for me! The E. seedlings in the photo were sown March 21st - or 4 weeks ago!! I think they're leggy due to neglect and not getting the ideal amount of light (and perhaps fertilizer). They've been out in the greenhouse for a while. I'd prefer short and stocky in general, but as it happens, the leggy stems match up pretty well with the scion seedlings I have going now.

I'm really intrigued by your intentional "rootstock reversal" experiment. (My experiment was obviously "flawed" ). Hope it comes out OK (that is, everything survives ).
Anne

[heirloomtomaguy]

I too had issues with the estamino rootstock taking for ever to grow. All of my scion plants grew far faster than the rootstock. I even started the estamino a week in advance. Then i went on vacation came back and now the estamino is far to big for my second round of scions. Thinking about doing a triple graft on them now.

[JamesL]

Upside down rootstock grafts 4.18.14:
Dester on Estamino







Maxifort on Maxifort





4.22.12 - Using my keen powers of observation I have deduced the upside down grafts are not doing well.



Too early to call the Time of Death but it should happen by Friday.

[beeman]

Originally Posted by JamesL

Too early to call the Time of Death but it should happen by Friday.

Thank you for this. So we can say that 'upside down' root stock doesn't work?

I have another couple of questions.

Wouldn't there be some restriction of roots forming in these transparent pots that are being used?

I thought that roots preferred no daylight around them?

[JamesL]

Clearly a fail.
Disappointing as it would have given more options for matching stems. Flipped, these matched about as perfect as I have ever had.

Clear containers - These are merely water bottles that I cut down and punched holes in the bottom. I don't believe there are any issues using clear. Once the roots get going you can see them swirling around the inside.
Growing long term in clear containers would be problematic as you would get all kinds of "stuff" growing in that moist humid environment.

[aclum]

Hi James,

Thanks for doing the experiment with the great photo documentation !

Of my 3 grafts, the AC/PL is definitely a goner. I'd say it's about a toss up as to whether or not the other two make it "over the hump" It's pretty iffy at this point.

Well, good to know that apparently Worth was right and everything needs to be oriented in the same direction. I say "apparently" because of the small sampling and Lord knows that I've had failures even when everything IS oriented correctly - but your experiment, James, is pretty convincing!

I guess if I were to do a bunch of grafts presoaking the short no-root rootstock sections, I could cut a drinking straw in half to make sort of a little channel or gutter in a shallow pan of water to line up the snippets all in the same orientation. They sort of spin around just placed in a dish of water and left to their own devices .

Guess I'll be trying a few more no-root Estamino grafts soon - with everything oriented in the same direction. Would like at least a few grafts to compare to my controls and grafts on 105.

Anne

[JamesL]

Anne,
I think this is like laying sod, the green side goes up!
Clearly not enough for a statistical sample, but I have so much extra rootstock going right now I am going to do another confirmatory batch at the end.
The only graft I have yet to do is the Delerium Triple Play.
Black Cherry, Sungella and Riesentraube. Going to attempt to mount at least one on either Maxi or Estamino assuming I have one big enough.
My success rate with the No Roots method in DE is currently 100%! I also did a few using glue.
Only did 2 the regular way, using the rootstock stumps still in the DE, one required a regraft and they both made it as well. So I got 4 grafts out of 2 Maxifort.
Those 2 took a lot longer to recover than any others and the one would not have made it without a regraft. No Roots method has a wide margin for error.
If you leave the rootstock in the media after you cut the top off you can clearly observe the upward water pressure from the roots as a bead of water forms on the top of the cut stem.
Using glue with No Roots was definitely trickier and I needed your grafting jig to do it.
I took the rootstock section, placed it in the spring clip on a knitting needle which was stuck into a cup of wet DE. They work well as stem supports for top heavy scions too!