Author Topic: Grafting question - immature scion to mature rootstock  (Read 384 times)

tropical_tree_for_me

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Grafting question - immature scion to mature rootstock
« on: December 13, 2023, 12:29:11 AM »
I have an unusual question, some fruits can take up to 10-15 years to grow from seed to being able to fruit (if at all). My question is what if we take a scion from a seedling let's just say mango for example, of unknown monoembryonic seedling and we grafted onto a mature mango tree, would that speed up fruiting of the unknown scion?

tongmuan

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Re: Grafting question - immature scion to mature rootstock
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2023, 08:37:28 AM »
Sorry to hijack your topic, but I have a somewhat related question, and am hoping the person who can answer yours could at least make an educated guess for mine too :)

What makes a grafted tree fruit faster? Is it just about the age of the parent tree the scion is from or does something (chemically/hormonally?) change when the parent tree fruits for the first time and only after that grafting a scion from that tree speeds up fruiting?

For example, assuming a seedling takes 10 years to fruit, would grafting a scion from a 5 year tree (so maybe halfway to fruiting) reduce time to fruit compared to simply growing the seedling?

drymifolia

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Re: Grafting question - immature scion to mature rootstock
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2023, 02:33:23 PM »
I think the answers to both questions will be very species-specific.

For avocados (a topic I have researched extensively, including attempting to answer both of these questions), it is unclear what the exact trigger is that changes an immature seedling tree (never forms flower buds) to a mature one. It appears to be linked to the total biomass or total number of leaf nodes on the seedling, but I don't believe anyone has studied the exact biochemistry of how/why it happens.

Once an avocado tree is "mature," new grafts of that scionwood on any other tree, whether small seedlings or large multi-graft trees, will result in flowers every year, usually starting the first season after grafting. Fruit set may be a challenge before they get large, but they will be "mature" and capable of fruiting from the start. In other words, the transition to "maturity" has caused physical (epigenetic?) changes in the cells in that wood, which are retained as it is propagated by grafting.

However, grafting an immature scion onto a "mature" branch does not seem to cause maturity to transfer to the scion. I know this was discussed in some old CAS Yearbooks but I don't have the time to track them down.

My only personal experience attempting the latter is a Mexicola seedling that I grafted onto my largest greenhouse multi-graft tree in summer 2021. It has not yet flowered, even though all the other grafts on the tree flowered both years since then. However, the entire tree is almost reaching "mature seedling" size (it is 8+ ft tall, 6+ ft wide), so I suspect the seedling graft will become "mature" once that happens. If that's true, then you could probably induce earlier flowering by grafting an immature avocado scion onto a large tree (as long as you don't remove too much biomass of the tree when you add the new graft).

tropical_tree_for_me

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Re: Grafting question - immature scion to mature rootstock
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2023, 07:39:36 PM »
That makes sense, thank you for taking the time to answer, really appreciate it.