Grafting Lychees

[msk0072]

I have some lychee seedlings and I like to try to graft. As I know the most lychee trees (more than 90%) are produced using air layering. Only a small quantity is produced using grafting material. Searching the internet I found very few sources about this topic and the description was not detailed.
Before I try to graft the seedlings next spring/summer I like to clear some questions in my mind:
How easy?
What are the conditions and preconditions?
What kind of graft?
Rootstock?, scion wood?  etc...

Sorry if this is discussed before in another topic in this forum, but my search didn't give me related results

[fruitlovers]

I have some lychee seedlings and I like to try to graft. As I know the most lychee trees (more than 90%) are produced using air layering. Only a small quantity is produced using grafting material. Searching the internet I found very few sources about this topic and the description was not detailed.
Before I try to graft the seedlings next spring/summer I like to clear some questions in my mind:
How easy?
What are the conditions and preconditions?
What kind of graft?
Rootstock?, scion wood?  etc...

Sorry if this is discussed before in another topic in this forum, but my search didn't give me related results

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult. In order to maximize compatibility try to use seed and rootstock from same cultivar. For example, if grafting Kaimana use rootstock grown from Kaimana seeds, and scion wood from Kaimana. I think regular cleft graft will work, but haven't tried it, so you might want to experiment with a few different types of graft unions.

[msk0072]

I have some lychee seedlings and I like to try to graft. As I know the most lychee trees (more than 90%) are produced using air layering. Only a small quantity is produced using grafting material. Searching the internet I found very few sources about this topic and the description was not detailed.
Before I try to graft the seedlings next spring/summer I like to clear some questions in my mind:
How easy?
What are the conditions and preconditions?
What kind of graft?
Rootstock?, scion wood?  etc...

Sorry if this is discussed before in another topic in this forum, but my search didn't give me related results

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult. In order to maximize compatibility try to use seed and rootstock from same cultivar. For example, if grafting Kaimana use rootstock grown from Kaimana seeds, and scion wood from Kaimana. I think regular cleft graft will work, but haven't tried it, so you might want to experiment with a few different types of graft unions.

Oscar,
Thanks for the replay.
I got the seeds from fruits I bought in the local super market. I didn't notice the cultivar so I don't know the cultivar of my seedlings. As I remember the fruits came from S. Africa. If there isn't compatibility between rootstock and scion wood how high is the success rate?

[HMHausman]

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult.

Maybe not for you......but for me, I have had very little success with my lychee grafting attempts. In fact I can count on one finger my success stories.  Let's see, that would be about 2% success rate.  I think I gave up after about 50 graft attempts or I am sure my take rate would be lower.

[FlyingFoxFruits]

i did about 10 alupag grafts onto longan rootstock.

not one took.

I think you must graft lychee like sapodilla and mamey...best to bag the plant and keep some leaves on the scion.

best of luck with your graft attempts.

[Jackfruitwhisperer69]

I have some lychee seedlings and I like to try to graft. As I know the most lychee trees (more than 90%) are produced using air layering. Only a small quantity is produced using grafting material. Searching the internet I found very few sources about this topic and the description was not detailed.
Before I try to graft the seedlings next spring/summer I like to clear some questions in my mind:
How easy?
What are the conditions and preconditions?
What kind of graft?
Rootstock?, scion wood?  etc...

Sorry if this is discussed before in another topic in this forum, but my search didn't give me related results

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult. In order to maximize compatibility try to use seed and rootstock from same cultivar. For example, if grafting Kaimana use rootstock grown from Kaimana seeds, and scion wood from Kaimana. I think regular cleft graft will work, but haven't tried it, so you might want to experiment with a few different types of graft unions.

Oscar,
Thanks for the replay.
I got the seeds from fruits I bought in the local super market. I didn't notice the cultivar so I don't know the cultivar of my seedlings. As I remember the fruits came from S. Africa. If there isn't compatibility between rootstock and scion wood how high is the success rate?

Hi Mike,
The variety must be 'Mauritius', it's a major commercial cultivar in South Africa

[msk0072]

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult.

Maybe not for you......but for me, I have had very little success with my lychee grafting attempts. In fact I can count on one finger my success stories.  Let's see, that would be about 2% success rate.  I think I gave up after about 50 graft attempts or I am sure my take rate would be lower.

Maybe that is the main reason for the preferred propagation method of air layering?

[fruitlovers]

I have some lychee seedlings and I like to try to graft. As I know the most lychee trees (more than 90%) are produced using air layering. Only a small quantity is produced using grafting material. Searching the internet I found very few sources about this topic and the description was not detailed.
Before I try to graft the seedlings next spring/summer I like to clear some questions in my mind:
How easy?
What are the conditions and preconditions?
What kind of graft?
Rootstock?, scion wood?  etc...

Sorry if this is discussed before in another topic in this forum, but my search didn't give me related results

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult. In order to maximize compatibility try to use seed and rootstock from same cultivar. For example, if grafting Kaimana use rootstock grown from Kaimana seeds, and scion wood from Kaimana. I think regular cleft graft will work, but haven't tried it, so you might want to experiment with a few different types of graft unions.

Oscar,
Thanks for the replay.
I got the seeds from fruits I bought in the local super market. I didn't notice the cultivar so I don't know the cultivar of my seedlings. As I remember the fruits came from S. Africa. If there isn't compatibility between rootstock and scion wood how high is the success rate?

If not compatible success rate will be very low, and even if succesful will die later on.

[fruitlovers]

If you use rootstock and scion that are compatible than grafting lychee is not difficult.

Maybe not for you......but for me, I have had very little success with my lychee grafting attempts. In fact I can count on one finger my success stories.  Let's see, that would be about 2% success rate.  I think I gave up after about 50 graft attempts or I am sure my take rate would be lower.

Did you use same cultivar for rootstock and for scion like i'm suggesting?

[HMHausman]

Did you use same cultivar for rootstock and for scion like i'm suggesting?

I've tried it every which way, including seedlings of same cultivar I was trying to graft....although this was less often done for sure as there would be little need for the same cultivar that I already had.  And if I don't have the cultivar, I won't have the seeds available for seedlings to graft on to. Maybe if I tried the same seedlings type my percentage of takes would be higher......and then again, maybe not.....maybe its just bad technique on my part.

[FlyingFoxFruits]

Harry,

we must always believe that it's bad technique on our part, because I know we can do anything if we put our mind to it!

I'm sure we can get some successful grafts going, if we brainstorm a bit more on this thread!

I never knew it was a challenge to graft lychee/longan, but it makes sense.  I failed miserably with my best attempts, and have not ever seen one grafted in 8 yrs of looking at lychees in FL.


ps, I wonder if a small sheild bud method would work?  using less scion material from the mother plant?

[Tim]

You need some red mud & straws

http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1954%20Vol.%2067/231-233%20%28NELSON%29.pdf

... I wonder if a small sheild bud method would work?  using less scion material from the mother plant?

[fruit4me]

Hello everyone! Speaking of grafting lychees, I just want to update pictures of my longan seedling rootstock approach grafted to my in-ground mauritius lychee. It looks like it works, but I'm still worry it will die if i cut the lychee off. Under the graft of the lychee, I plan to remove a ring off bark in the spring time when it is flowering. I want to see if it will force the seedling longan to flower too.


I kept the top part of the graft tied up just in case.

[HMHausman]

My understanding was that they were difficult to graft.  I thought it had something to do with the structure of the plant.  I know when you air layer, there are more pronounced channels in the wood that make it difficult to fully remove the cambium layer.  I thought that this channeling was somehow the reason for the difficulty in grafting.  This is all very foggy in my brain from class back in the 90's.  Maybe it is all a bunch of incorrect non-sense.  Anyone out there that can channel these channel issues?

[fyliu]

You mean those grooves you have to dig out when air layering or just keep slicing until you don't see them anymore. When the cambium is uneven like that I can see how any scion to rootstock contact would be at points rather than short dashes, if that makes any sense.

What if more bark is peeled on one side and covered over the peeled wood on the other side? If separated carefully the cambium layer cells exist on both the bark and the wood.

[msk0072]

You need some red mud & straws

http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1954%20Vol.%2067/231-233%20%28NELSON%29.pdf

... I wonder if a small sheild bud method would work?  using less scion material from the mother plant?

Very old article with good ideas about lychee grafting. When I was very young this style of grafting was used from the older skilled man to graft the olive trees. I have this in my mind like a very old picture!

[Ethan]

Great job Fruit 4 Me!  Please let us know how your experiment goes this Spring.

[FlyingFoxFruits]

so did we decide on the best method for grafting lychees?

Cleft graft with leaves left on? or shield budding??

or what?

I'm going to give it a whirl.

[Cookie Monster]

I had good success with shield budding (with leaves on the scion). Scion wood was fairly young.

[FlyingFoxFruits]

I had good success with shield budding (with leaves on the scion). Scion wood was fairly young.

I can't imagine what that would look like...how do you leave the foliage on the scion when budding??

[bradflorida]

Adam,

Someone once told me that the former owner of Treehouse Nursery on Pine Island (Bob Murray) once tried to graft Lychee onto longan.   He found that the only type of lychee that could be grafted onto Longan was sweet cliff.   Some people have said that Sweet is a variety that is really a cross between a Lychee and Longan.  Not knowing if this is true, to me it sure has a bit of a longan taste and the shell of a sweetcliff partially resembles a Longan too. 

Brad

[Cookie Monster]

When you carve out the bud-eye, you leave a 1/2 leaf or two. Works great for many species: mamey sapote, carambola, mango, canistel, etc. With caramabola, you leave like 4 leaves (since they are small). For some species you have to time it right (eg, just before spring). Otherwise bud-eye doesn't want to spring.

I had good success with shield budding (with leaves on the scion). Scion wood was fairly young.

I can't imagine what that would look like...how do you leave the foliage on the scion when budding??

[fyliu]

You mean the bud has already budded out and grown leaves? I thought budding meant grafting the ungrown bud onto the rootstock. I'm not sure if I'm understanding it correctly.

[fruit4me]

The lychee and longan graft failed!  No connection

Hello everyone! Speaking of grafting lychees, I just want to update pictures of my longan seedling rootstock approach grafted to my in-ground mauritius lychee. It looks like it works, but I'm still worry it will die if i cut the lychee off. Under the graft of the lychee, I plan to remove a ring off bark in the spring time when it is flowering. I want to see if it will force the seedling longan to flower

I kept the top part of the graft tied up just in case.

[fyliu]

Sorry to hear that. It looked pretty good before.

[emegar]

Thought I'd go ahead and share my own attempts.  Here's my Hak Ip lychee, planted about two years ago here in inland southern California:



As you can see, I've recently attempted some grafts and a couple of airlayers.  Here's one successsful (up to this point) graft from last spring:



It's a Kwai Mi Pink/Bosworth 3 graft that took and looks to have set a few fruit this year.  Here's one more picture, of what looks to be a take on a No Mai Tze graft I made recently:

[bangkok]

To me it looked like the graft was healing fine. Why did it die? Did you cut it off in 1 time?

It looks like you grafted some older wood which is harder to try.

The lychee and longan graft failed!  No connection

Hello everyone! Speaking of grafting lychees, I just want to update pictures of my longan seedling rootstock approach grafted to my in-ground mauritius lychee. It looks like it works, but I'm still worry it will die if i cut the lychee off. Under the graft of the lychee, I plan to remove a ring off bark in the spring time when it is flowering. I want to see if it will force the seedling longan to flower

I kept the top part of the graft tied up just in case.

[fruit4me]

Bangkok, I was about to remove a ring of bark below the graft of the lychee. I barely moved it and it just came apart. It only looks like there was fusion. But really, its just the  lychee callousing over the longan.

Emegar, congrats on your grafts! Haven't had any luck with grafting lychees. Can you explain how you did the grafts? Thanks!

Max

[Steve in Los Osos]

There is a grafting technique given here, under "Propagation":

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/fb/lychee/lychee.htm#Propagation

I've never tried it. Still trying to keep a struggling air-layer alive 

[bangkok]

@fruitforme

I see, well i had grafts that looked the same and they took.

To cut the sciontree off i leave some cable-bundlers on the joint and i cut a v-shaped wedge out of the stem. Every week i cut the wedge a little bigger and after about 6 weeks i cut it totally of. Then i also remove some foliage of the scion and try to keep it in the shade for a week or so.

To graft the older branches takes much more time then younger ones so that is what i do now.

Well good luck next time, i think it is possible to graft lychee but i have never tried.

[emegar]

Max,

Wish I could reveal some secret.  The first time I made two attempts and had one take using a cleft graft.  This year I tried around 10 grafts and have one definite take and one or two that I'm crossing my fingers about.  I've used buddy tape around the scion and graft, and I also have tried to tie something (paper, foam, etc.) over the graft to give it a bit of protection from the direct sun.

James

[msk0072]

Max,

Wish I could reveal some secret.  The first time I made two attempts and had one take using a cleft graft.  This year I tried around 10 grafts and have one definite take and one or two that I'm crossing my fingers about.  I've used buddy tape around the scion and graft, and I also have tried to tie something (paper, foam, etc.) over the graft to give it a bit of protection from the direct sun.

James

James what was your rootstock and what was your scion (variety)?

[emegar]

I've grafted Kwai Mi Pink/Bosworth 3 and No Mai Tze onto a Hak Ip tree.

[kh0110]

After questioning Dr. Zee from USDA Hawaii on the Fi Tsz Siu lychee grafting, his responses confirmed the infos posted on the link on a previous reply.

According to Dr. Zee, these are keys factors in lychee grafting:
1. Rootstock must be growing vigorously (could be seedling, air layered, grafted)
2. Rootstock must be at least 1 yr old, half inch size is best
3. Rootstock could be Hak Ip, Mauritius, or Brewster

[fruitlovers]

Here are the instructions and illustrations in full for technique (modified top wedge) developed in Hilo by USDA specifically for grafting lychees:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/F_N-2.pdf
Hope that helps.

[mangomike]

I have used cleft, side and patch bud. The key thing is to make sure the rootstock is pushing. I fertilized the rootstocks three days before grafting. For patch budding, I also fertilized the scion donor tree ahead of taking scions. If the bark slips easily on both the rootstock and scion wood, patch buds can have very good percentage of takes. I have used this method for rambutan also.

[Mango Stein]

After learning that seedling lychee trees can take 8-15 years to fruit, I was wondering what happens if you graft onto a mature tree? Flowers + fruits within 1-2 years as though part of a mature tree? Or does it keep a "memory".

[Ariel]

I am folowing my lychee on longan graft. It is 30 cms long of  new growth