Author Topic: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?  (Read 3572 times)

Tropicaliste

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Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« on: August 15, 2017, 04:16:51 PM »
Hi All,
This is a bit of a long post, so bear with me if you want the story. It's been a while since I have created a new thread or posted. It's been a busy Summer and a lot has been going on, but I wanted to share some experiences with you all.

A little backstory. I was fascinated last year, when our forum friend Raul offered to sell us scions from the infamous Limoncillo/Luc's Garcinia we have all been clammoring to try. Unfortunately, I have very little experience grafting, I had no rootstock, and only a slight hope any scions would make it here and still be viable. I'm in Maryland, so I also have a short window to do this (The Summer). I figured, well somebody is bound to sell one. I looked high and low, and couldn't find one for sale. The only options to have any chance at fruiting became clear ... to wait for my little seedlings to maybe grow fruit in a decade ... or to try to graft them on my own(still a longshot on that fruit, but still).

So this year I set out to be prepared for Raul's sale. I've only ever grafted 3 times before this. A failed attempt at Rollinia, a 2nd failed attempt at the same Rollinia, and a failed Citrus graft experiment earlier this Spring ... so I watched Adam's Garcinia Laterifolia grafting video probably a thousand times. I like to think I'm a pretty quick learner as well. I then read up on advice here (Many thanks Carlos ) using Shick Injector Blades and ordered some and picked up a xacto knife from WMart. I had "buddy/budded tape"(AM Leonard) from my failed attempts, and so I gathered all my materials.

I ordered Limoncillo(Luc's Garcinia), Mangosteen(because who doesn't want a grafted mangosteen?), and for fun Garcinia Brasiliensis scions. Thanks to a kind friend in PR, who I'm very grateful to, I obtained 5 near-sapling size and 1 extra seedling size Achachairu. I already had one seedling size(from yet another friend years ago), which I didn't want to touch, and one intermedia which I wanted to use for variation. They came in time to be potted up, and given time to adjust and then I came home from a trip to NYC to find a package of scions ... a couple days later, because my absent minded father didn't give me all my mail when I got back. That was a bit frustrating, anyway I rushed to prep all my materials and my trees.








These were such big beautiful Achachairu, I couldn't help but set one aside. I'd like to have fruit of this as well some day.

I grafted up 5 of the Achachairu along with my 1 Intermedia.




This one I grafted 2 Limoncillo scions on 1 very healthy sapling. It may have been a bad idea, but I learned from this. It failed and has now pushed new Achachairu leaves from the nodes. I was really hoping at least one would take.

The Intermedia with 1 Limoncillio scion also failed. It has pushed really lush new leaves, which is nice, since it pretty much sat for 2 years pushing nothing.




This is 1 Mangosteen on 1 Achachairu. It was a gamble to try an Asian Garcinia on a New World Garcinia(Rheedia). It is still deciding what it wants to do. I keep any rootstock growth pruned off, but still see no scion growth. Still holding out hope for it though. The scion has not shriveled.

The same goes for the Garcinia Brasiliensis scion. I put both of the 2 that I got onto 1 Achachairu, and the side graft failed, but the top graft is still green, just not pushing anything. Fingers crossed, and maybe it will.

Now the fun part. My possible success...

Going into this, I kept up my optimism, and almost on the same timeline as the failures were these two possible successes, and I am saying little prayers that they flourish. I was over the moon when I saw the following, and still am.





Pretty soon after grafting, I observed, no dying scion. A very good sign. My previous attempts at grafting had resulted in a pretty quickly dying scion. Then about a week or two later I started to see the littlest spear of new leaves popping through the buddy tape. I was over the moon. It somehow made all the trouble worth it. The following show what it's at about now and it continues to grow. :) It was my only Limoncillo that has pushed and didn't shrivel.








The following is a Mangosteen scion. This made me equally happy. My only concern with this is that it had a long time to push through the buddy tape, and the scion is really dark midway and below. Anyone know if this is rot or something else bad?









Thanks all for reading. I'll keep all of you updated as long as you want, and if you have any questions or comments please feel free. I realize I may be "jinxing" these attempts, but I couldn't help but share with my friends here. :) I know I have to baby these until they really heal and harden at the graft site, so I guess my only question is when to remove the buddy tape? :)

Cassio

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2017, 08:04:07 AM »
Hey, Congrats!!
I´m also trying something like you:
I received scions of Luc´s Gracinia from Raul and Neles.

The ones from Raul, I did this (30 days ago):
- 01 Side graft over a 2m tall achachairu (died last week)
- 01 side graft over bacupari (it is all black, but appears to have 2 litlle gems growing)
- 01 top graft over a 40cm tall achachairu. Looks well, but without leafs yet

The ones from Neles (0,5 to 1 cm in diameter):
- I´m trying to root the 10 scions. All of them are still alive after more than 30 days, and at least 5 has leafs coming.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2017, 06:29:40 AM by Cassio »

skhan

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2017, 08:42:47 AM »
Great Job,
keep us updated.

Surprised that Mangosteen took on Achaha.
I think next year I'll have a few Seashore and Achacha root stock.
Let me know where you got the scions from via PM

Thanks for sharing

Tropicaliste

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2017, 12:08:55 AM »
Hey guys, thanks for the messages. I'm still so psyched about it, and the Luc's is still growing, it actually put out a another set of leaves from lower on the scion so it's definitely alive. What I found interesting about this grafting is that it has kicked the achachairus in the butt, and I'm continuously having to pinch off new growth from the rootstock. My Lemon drop that didn't work has put out huge new leaves after sitting idle for years. I guess cutting them(albeit for another purpose) encourages growth :)

Big question though. If the scion is turning black but the new growth is still green, is it dying? My mangosteen is steel green at the leaves but the scion is becoming black. Is it time to take off the buddy/budded tape or does that stay on? I'm worried it's mold or rot from the rain we've had. Another scion is still green, but has pushed zero.

barath

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2017, 12:53:49 AM »
I got surprisingly good results from Raul's scions.  I grafted four of them on Achacha rootstock and all four took but one died after pushing.  I also grafted two more on bacupari miudo (G. brasiliensis) rootstock and got one take and one that hasn't died or pushed.  I think one thing that helped was that I had all of them in the shade in a warm indoor environment, with their water trays filled with water at all times.

That surprised me, because the scions survived a month-long journey.  I wish avocado scions would last as long (they sometimes go bad in less than a week).
« Last Edit: September 18, 2017, 12:55:20 AM by barath »

BrianL

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2017, 01:44:14 AM »
When grafting Garcinias do they have to be the only shoot or can you just graft a branch?

I've put so much work into some of them, plus the ones I got from Barath are getting decent sized.  Kind of hesitant to graft over whole thing.

msk0072

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2017, 01:51:42 AM »
I got surprisingly good results from Raul's scions.  I grafted four of them on Achacha rootstock and all four took but one died after pushing.  I also grafted two more on bacupari miudo (G. brasiliensis) rootstock and got one take and one that hasn't died or pushed.  I think one thing that helped was that I had all of them in the shade in a warm indoor environment, with their water trays filled with water at all times.

That surprised me, because the scions survived a month-long journey.  I wish avocado scions would last as long (they sometimes go bad in less than a week).
One month is a long time to stay alive. Did you choose EMS or priority mail service?
Mike

barath

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2017, 11:47:26 AM »
When grafting Garcinias do they have to be the only shoot or can you just graft a branch?

I've put so much work into some of them, plus the ones I got from Barath are getting decent sized.  Kind of hesitant to graft over whole thing.

I grafted the leaders on these with a cleft graft.  No idea if you can graft a branch on a bigger tree and have it work as well.

I got surprisingly good results from Raul's scions.  I grafted four of them on Achacha rootstock and all four took but one died after pushing.  I also grafted two more on bacupari miudo (G. brasiliensis) rootstock and got one take and one that hasn't died or pushed.  I think one thing that helped was that I had all of them in the shade in a warm indoor environment, with their water trays filled with water at all times.

That surprised me, because the scions survived a month-long journey.  I wish avocado scions would last as long (they sometimes go bad in less than a week).
One month is a long time to stay alive. Did you choose EMS or priority mail service?

I did choose priority mail if I remember right.

Cassio

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2017, 01:37:33 PM »
One month is a long time to stay alive. Did you choose EMS or priority mail service?

The scions that Raul sent me survived 35 days in transit.
Is about these scions that I´m talking about in my previous post in this thread. Yeah, these scions are strong. :)

Tropicaliste

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #9 on: September 22, 2017, 11:31:02 PM »
Yeah the scions are very durable. Raul did a good job. I don't know of anyone else selling the scions so we are all very lucky to have this resource.

Still, I'm wondering when to remove the tape? It's essentially buddy tape. I'm just worried that the scion will rot underneath if it's turning black but the top is still green. Anyone have advice on this?

cmichael258

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2017, 09:47:20 AM »
I got surprisingly good results from Raul's scions.  I grafted four of them on Achacha rootstock and all four took but one died after pushing.  I also grafted two more on bacupari miudo (G. brasiliensis) rootstock and got one take and one that hasn't died or pushed.  I think one thing that helped was that I had all of them in the shade in a warm indoor environment, with their water trays filled with water at all times.

That surprised me, because the scions survived a month-long journey.  I wish avocado scions would last as long (they sometimes go bad in less than a week).
One month is a long time to stay alive. Did you choose EMS or priority mail service?

I grafted one of Raul's on the branch of a lemon drop mangosteen year before last and it took. Last
year I had one bloom on it.
Michael

barath

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2017, 10:35:40 PM »
Yeah the scions are very durable. Raul did a good job. I don't know of anyone else selling the scions so we are all very lucky to have this resource.

Still, I'm wondering when to remove the tape? It's essentially buddy tape. I'm just worried that the scion will rot underneath if it's turning black but the top is still green. Anyone have advice on this?

Generally I think buddy tape / parafilm just needs to be exposed to some direct sunlight and it will degrade on its own.

Tropicaliste

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Re: Garcinia Grafting Failures ... and Successes?
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2017, 12:08:23 AM »
Thanks for the tip. Didn't know the sun did that. I was so afraid of burning the young shoots on the scion that I had all my grafts in the brush that grows along my fence. They only get what sunlight filters through. After we had the trees removed from the backyard last Summer there was effectively no shaded spot in the back yard, so a lot of my trees have been on the side and front of the house. I'll see about moving them into a bit more sun.