Pomegranate grafted on dwarf pomegranate

[Pancrazio]

I have grafted a regular pomegranate on a dwarf clone (cleft and t-bud), hoping to get a smallish tree.



Has anyone ever attempted this? What should i expect?
So far the graft are still alive but is still very soon to say if they did take (they are just 2 weeks old).
I was looking for feedback and experiences.

[bsbullie]

You will have to monitor any growth flushes from the dwarf/"roitstock" as you dont want that growth getting mixed in or competing.

Dont know if there arr any guarantees it will dwerf the regular/edible pom you grafted.

[Pancrazio]

Yes, I'm keeping an eye on it, because apparently pomegranate buds are very small and also it has already started flushing from rootstock to replace lost growth.

Too bad accounts of grating on pomegranate are very rare, because the plant lends itself so well to cutting/air layering that grafting is apparently very rare. But i have read that grafting by itself leads to dwarfish plants, i guessed that on a dwarf rootstock i could get a plant that produces full sized delicious fruits on a tree very adapt to smallish gardens. If this will be a success remains to be seen! 

[sildanani]

I've never seen anyone graft onto one. Like you said, I usually see it propagated in other ways.  I have no experience grafting on pomegranate, but I do have a seedling that is 5 or six years old that hasn't ever fruited. Hope it works out for you so I can try!

[LivingParadise]

Please update us. I'll be interested to see what happens. I have a dwarf pomegranate that I planted when I first moved here, when I had never heard of them before - I thought I had hit the jackpot and stumbled across a very cheap regular pomegranate! The little thing is still doing well and fruiting here, but the fruit is pretty much inedible. I don't want to rip it out, but it would be nice to find out maybe I can do something else with it to make use of its happy root structure. I have 2 Vietnam pomegranates that are doing well but have not fruited yet (I hope in the next year!), and am looking for an Angel Red to add to the mix. I have had opportunities to buy Wonderful, and Hawaiian Beauty, but as far as I know for varieties that are delicious and able to be acquired here in FL, Angel Red is supposed to be the best.

[Pancrazio]

Update, as requested. The graft was performed around 9th of September, and now i'm happy to confirm that something moves around the graft.
I have noticed a HUGE production of callus that is visible under the parafilm (hardly in this picture, but the green hue is callus):



Few days later (today) one of the scions (cleft graft) shows some growth:



I know that this is too early to say "it's done" but at this point i feel confident enough to say that the graft looks "technically" a success, and i'm going to assume than any further problem may be due to the lack of compatibility between the regular pomegranate and the dwarf one.
Now it remains to be seen if the dwarf rootstock will dwarf the pomegranate, but i don't see why it shouldn't.

[greenman62]

ive never seen a dwarf, except for the one i had
which never got over a foot tall.
the fruit were an inch across, and certainly not worth fiddling with.
now, i am thinking this is a good idea. wish i had thought of it ... LOL

what was the size of the dwarf plant, and how large was the fruit ?

mine grew slow also, but, then i probably didnt care for it much
since i wasnt getting fruit.

[Pancrazio]

Here  dwarf pomegranates are common in nurseries, but just as ornamental purposes, fruit as you said is small and in the best case insipid, in worst case downright acidic.
I have a small hedge of dwarf pomegrantes that are about 30 years old, but they aren't even 2 feet tall. I attempted maybe once to taste the fruit but never bothered since.

I have bought the plant i used for this experiment from the nursery, so i cant' really comment on it. I kept it just for few days before grafting. It had maybe 2 fruits, big about as golf balls.

The clone i grafted on is an heirloom variety, planted by my granpa, don't know the name. I have a limited experience in pomegranates, but all the people of the neighborhood say that this clone is actually very good, and since i enjoy it too (fruit sweet with just a little tannin tone) i'm interested in reproducing it. The fruit aren't very big, i would say they are orange sized.

If this methid could keep the plant at dwarf size, it would be great. Considering the size of the stems of my 30 years old dwarf pomegranates i would say that if this works, you could expect a full sized pomegranate at 6 feet tall max without pruning. IF this works: that remains to be seen.

I'm not the best grafter and pomegranates have been around for a long time; looks impossible to me that I’m the first one thinking about this, so my conservative guess is that this at some point doesn't work. Compatibility issues is my guess.
However so far so good, so let's see how things develop.

[LivingParadise]

Thanks for the update! Keep us informed.

I don't know if I have a need for this, since so far my pomegranates seem fine in my current soil and I'm not so worried about size issues, but since I am planning to get at least one other pomegranate variety, and I don't have experience with grafting yet, I think seeing if I could make a dwarf pomegranate cocktail tree would be a really fun project! I could add Vietnam, Angel Red, and maybe some other variety...  If it was successful I bet that terrible-fruited little pomegranate tree would be suddenly very valuable! Currently it's flowers are pretty, but it makes dull red fruit with clear/white seed pods in the interior, and the taste and smell are pretty heavily of onions with a hint of lemon... which I guess would be fine for salads or something, but the seeds are too hard to eat, and they are not very juicy anyway.

[nch]

I don't know about dwarf poms, but I grafted some known varieties on my large unknown variety pom last year, almost all of the grafts took. From my first experience, I think poms are pretty easy to graft, since I chose small, lower branches to graft, instead of dominant ones, and yet the grafts took. They are pretty easy to propagate from cuttings too.