For the grafting experts.

[luc]

We all know that grafting ( from a producing tree on a seedling ) will speed up fruiting.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that grafting a seedling on a mature tree may produce the same effect

I am looking at this to make cocktail trees and save space.

Unfortunately I am a lauzy grafter...

[Tropicdude]

You can use the Inarching or approach graft.  if you have a seedling from lets say a poly embryonic mango like Nam Doc Mai.  you can just do an approach graft, once it "takes" then you cut off the bottom of the seedling.  and that new branch will flower and fruit just like the rest of the tree.

I have not tried approach graft yet, but seems easier and safer than other types of grafts.

 

[luc]

Thanks tropicdude , I 'll have to practice more , but the real question was :

I seem to remember reading somewhere that grafting a seedling on a mature tree may produce the same effect.

Like grafting seedlings on a female or male tree in the hope to get the opposite sex and/or making cocktail trees .

[Tropicdude]

Yes you could just cut off the seedling as a scion and graft it onto the cocktail tree your doing,  the risk here is if the scion doesn't take  you may lose your seedling.  really depends on the size of your seedling when you start.

With approach graft, you only cut off the base of your seedling when and if the graft takes.

Its also possible to get your seedling to flower and fruit, with approach graft.   the way I read you do this is,  you do a normal approach graft,  just before the mother tree is about to flower, you then remove all leaves from the seedling that is already inarched but still has its own roots.

What happens is the phytohormones from the mother tree will induce flowering in the seedling without it being detached from its roots.

This is a good technique for trying out new seedlings for breeding.  you wont have to wait so many years to see if its a keeper or not,  you sample the fruit if its good, you can then complete the graft by removing the root part of the seedling, or separate the graft and let it grow naturally in its pot the slow way , which may be desirable if you also need to determine vigor, growth habit etc.

What I would like to know is, what the heck makes a particular part of the plant an adult?,

For example, If i get a young seedling, and graft it to a mature tree, it will act like the mature tree and flower and set fruit.

If i get a scion from a mature tree and graft it onto rootstock, it could also flower and fruit.  in other words as long as one part ( roots or scion ) is adult or mature you can get flowering and fruits.

so here is the tricky part, lets say I have a seedling that  I have grafted onto a mature tree, and leave it one season to flower and fruit, and then cut off a scion from that graft to re-graft it onto rootstock,  would the process of having had it on adult tree make it so it will act like a normal scion from a mature tree?

Kinda complicated to explain hope someone can make sense of this lol.

anyway i will try experimenting with all this eventually, because that's just the type of mad scientist i am, Muahahahah

[Mike T]

Approach grafting is one of the easiest grafting methods and has a high success rate,It is more usual to have your pots hanging in the scion tree to get mature scion on your seeling.I am sure that with the reverse if getting seedling tops onto a mature tree would result in seedlings reshooting each time it was done unless it was taken back to the soil.My opinion is that you would still have a long wait until fruiting with juvenile tissue in spite of potential phyto-hormone cues from the main tree.

[Tropicdude]

Approach grafting is one of the easiest grafting methods and has a high success rate,It is more usual to have your pots hanging in the scion tree to get mature scion on your seeling.I am sure that with the reverse if getting seedling tops onto a mature tree would result in seedlings reshooting each time it was done unless it was taken back to the soil.My opinion is that you would still have a long wait until fruiting with juvenile tissue in spite of potential phyto-hormone cues from the main tree.

The following document describes one of the techniques described above.
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1962%20Vol.%2075/410-412%20%28SINGH%29.pdf

The trick is to remove all the leaves on the youngster, and girdle the mature trees stem below the graft.

[jcaldeira]

The following document describes one of the techniques described above.
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1962%20Vol.%2075/410-412%20%28SINGH%29.pdf

The trick is to remove all the leaves on the youngster, and girdle the mature trees stem below the graft.

Fascinating.  Thanks for sharing this study.

[zands]

The following document describes one of the techniques described above.
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1962%20Vol.%2075/410-412%20%28SINGH%29.pdf

The trick is to remove all the leaves on the youngster, and girdle the mature trees stem below the graft.

Very useful PDF. In this case what do you consider girdling? Do you remove both of the outer layers between the bark and the heartwood? My understanding is not too many fluids (none?) travel up or down the tree via the inner heartwood. That one layer of newer wood is for fluids going up and other for fluids going down.

That in classic girdling you want to stop the fluids going down so you remove that layer. But you want to keep the layer bring fluids and nutrition to the selected branch. People try girdling lychee branches. So you take a larger lychee branch and girdle it properly. The layer that brings nutrition to the branch and to the tips of that branch is left intact. The layer that brings what the branch produces to other parts of the tree, the trunk and to the roots, a strip of that layer is cut out and disrupted by girdling. The leaves produce sugars etc via photosynthesis. Now those products cannot reach the rest of the tree

Di I have all that correct?

[Jackfruitwhisperer69]

Hi Luc,

A saddle graft can also be used for top working a mature tree with a seedling. You can stake a bamboo pole in the ground and use a machete to make two cut(Cross) and split the bambo till the second node. then pull back the strips of bamboo and place the seedling in and tie with rope to secure the seedling...don't forget to water the seedling, once in a while and when the union is formed, you can decapitate the seedling and remove the bamboo pole.

[Tropicdude]

The following document describes one of the techniques described above.
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1962%20Vol.%2075/410-412%20%28SINGH%29.pdf

The trick is to remove all the leaves on the youngster, and girdle the mature trees stem below the graft.

Very useful PDF. In this case what do you consider girdling? Do you remove both of the outer layers between the bark and the heartwood? My understanding is not too many fluids (none?) travel up or down the tree via the inner heartwood. That one layer of newer wood is for fluids going up and other for fluids going down.

That in classic girdling you want to stop the fluids going down so you remove that layer. But you want to keep the layer bring fluids and nutrition to the selected branch. People try girdling lychee branches. So you take a larger lychee branch and girdle it properly. The layer that brings nutrition to the branch and to the tips of that branch is left intact. The layer that brings what the branch produces to other parts of the tree, the trunk and to the roots, a strip of that layer is cut out and disrupted by girdling. The leaves produce sugars etc via photosynthesis. Now those products cannot reach the rest of the tree

Di I have all that correct?

Sorry I took so long, I wanted to read over this report again,  Note, I have not practiced this technique, but enjoy the theory and want to try this soon.

in the PDF:

Bonner and Liverman ( 1953 ) Have also reported that Florigen* which is now thought to be large molecules of nucleo-protein, is transported readily through living tissues and will pass through the graft-union easily.

*Florigen from Wiki

Florigen (or flowering hormone) is the term used to describe the hypothesized hormone-like molecules responsible for controlling and/or triggering flowering in plants. Florigen is produced in the leaves and acts in the shoot apical meristem of buds and growing tips. It is known to be graft-transmissible and even functions between species. However, despite having been sought since the 1930s, the exact nature of florigen is still a mystery.

From another Document:

Shoot initiation is driven by different factors than
those regulating induction events that determine whether
the developing shoots will be vegetative or reproductive.
It is thought to involve the interactive ratio in buds of
accumulated cytokinins from roots with declining auxin
production and transport from leaves of increasing age

This would explain why no leaves should be present on the Scion, as the Auxin would counter balance the ratio in favor of vegetative growth instead of flowering.

The question now is, if Cytokins are the flowering regulators, and are produced in the roots, how do these move up past the girdle. could it be that the cytokins already present past the girdle are sufficient to stimulate flowering in the scion, which has no leaves at all?  could be. or maybe something triggers the leaves on the mature tree in a way that they start producing a "Florigen" type hormone, which will pass through the graft as explained above.

This study seems to support this ( done on another species )

Recent advances in molecular biology of flowering in
the facultative, long-day, model herbaceous plant,
Arabidopsis thaliana, [reviewed in Zeevaart (2006) and
Aksenova et al. (2006)] has provided new insights into
the nature of the floral stimulus. Activation of the
CONSTANS (CO) gene encodes a protein, which in turn
induces expression of the FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT)
gene localized in phloem tissue in vascular veins of
leaves. The protein product of FT acts as the florigenic
component, that is translocated to Arabidopsis buds
(Corbesier et al., 2007). This conclusion is supported by
translocation from leaves to buds of an analogous
protein encoded by Hd3a, a rice ortholog of FT, which
appears to be the florigen operating in that crop

Activation of the
CONSTANS (CO) gene encodes a protein, which in turn induces expression of the FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene localized in phloem tissue in vascular veins of leaves

Which if true means that once the leaves ( past the girdle ) have been "activated" they produce the Florigen that can pass through the graft, and stimulate flowering in the scion.

Thanks for asking the question Zands, it motivated me to go through all my PDFs and notes  but it has helped me understand how this all works more clearly. I am still not too sure on the timing, do I graft way before flowering season or during? Hmmm.

a few docs of interest
http://horttech.ashspublications.org/content/10/4/733.full.pdf
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1991%20Vol.%20104/39-41%20%28NUNEZ%29.pdf