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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Campbell White Sapote HELP?
« on: March 26, 2024, 10:14:27 PM »
I have a grafted Mary Lane growing in about 70% shade. Leaves are fat as hell. I think the saplings want shade and sandy soil.
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Agreed, the fruits are not easy to pick from a tall tree but that said many doesnt get tall at al unless you count six meters as tall?
I've seen rollinias here that get 50 feet tall (16 meters) in good soil. Mine on lava rock is over 30 feet tall. I get plenty, and more than plenty fruits, from lower branches, so don't bother with pruning...let the birds eat the ones at the top. Ofcourse for commercial production everything needs to be kept at easily pickable height.
Oscar
Ready to resurrect this post.
What is the verdict on pruning Rolinia?
So I regrafted everything with different tape. Bagged them, and put the potts in the sun 🌞 to wake these mfers up. Will keep you updated.
I think the bags is the reason of your graft failure. It cook the scion. What I would do is using the cherimoya leaf and partially wrap around the scion and tie the leaf to the scion to provide the shade and heat. The idea is to prevent direct sun light, but still have the heat and brightness. Leave the plant in the sun to keep the rootstock active.
For what its worth, my graft take percentage sky rocketed when I started wrapping the unions with flagging tape as Brad recommended. I wrap the scion with parafilm. Before that I tried wrapping the whole thing with parafilm or electrical tape, or grafting strips. I got the best results by far with flagging tape.
Doug, I have a little more experience than you, been grafting for over 30 years. I do teach grafting to some friends and CRFG members.
My comments/suggestion for you besides the failures just being bad timing, nothing you can improve for that with the grafting method. Here's my suggestion, you may already be doing some of these things when grafting. I only use parafilm and it seems to work fine, didn't try buddy tape.
1. Make sure you cut the scion wood and rootstock surface as flat as you can. I see many beginners cut the scion wood, very uneven surface and they think it is good. This just takes praction.
2. Same on the cut surface of the rootstock, I suggest to look at the surface and make it as flat and smooth as you can.
3. Make sure you have the freshes scion wood you can use to increase graft take
4. Wrap the scionwood first with the parafilm, only one stretched layer as you wind it around all open surface. Reason to have only one stretched layer is so the tape will breathe and the new buds will pop through the tape so no need to remove it.
5. Wrap the graft union with parafilm after you insert the scion wood about 1" below and 1/2" above the rootstock/scion mating area.
6. When wraping the graft union section, you can put on more than 1 layer of parafilm since no buds are going to grow there. Again, make sure when you wrap it, stretch the tape 2x the length of the normal unwound tape.
7. Now to apply force which is needed to the mating surface of the scion wood and rootstock, you can use any of the mention tapes. I like to use the cheap green garden tape from Home Depot. Stretch the tape for pressure around the graft union. If you are not making this wrap tight, it may be the reason for the moisture in your grafts. There is no other place the water can get into the graft union.
8. After the new scion grows out buds, 4-12 weeks depending on the fruit tree you are grafting, you can think about cutting and removing only the green tape at the graft union.
That is all there is. Mostly just practice, practice, like anything else we do. Hope this helps you a little.
I do about 1,000 grafts a year. Just got plenty of time to work on my hobby. The graft success rate depends on the fruit tree variety I'm grafting. For mulberry, avocado, loquats, figs, it is above 75%, for citrus, jujube, persimmon, cherimoya, it is about 60%. For the difficult to graft fruit trees like lychee and guava, my success rate is 10-25%.
if you get 0/40, maybe the timing is off.
I've talked to nursery growers and propagators down south, and even they have seen results like that when trying off season.
I would say my favorite tape is buddy tape.
But parafilm works just as good.
To get a tight union on stuff like jaboticabas, I will use the green plant tie tape over the union.
Keep in mind though that mangos and annonas don't like it as tight, although it needs to be tight...it's a balance. With those plants, I just twist the parafilm sideways and wrap it like a cord to get the strength needed.
Make sure to store them in a cool dark dry place or else the tapes will degrade. I realize I will buy new tapes each year even though I haven't used them all.
I quit using parafilm because it cracks before the grafts are healed. I get near perfect take rates using just the flagging tape on the unions. It doesnt crack and it comes off super easy.
As far as permeability specs etc of different tapes, those probably go out the window when you wrap your union in multiple layers.
I don't think the issue you are seeing is water getting into the graft. If you pulled the tape tight over it it isnt leaking. I think maybe you just are not getting a tight bond on the unions. You need to use something stronger to hold the unions together tight.
I see moisture trapped in my BuddyTape wrapped grafts / scions all the time, but it doesn't seem to be a deal breaker for me. If you're trying to graft right now and rain is getting into your grafts, of course you're going to have issues. Sometimes you don't really have a choice like with stonefruits and other temperate fruit trees that need grafts before bud break, but you can't just chuck a graft on a plant cause you have the time and the scion and have success in every case.
Great example, citrus, it grows well when it's hot out. I graft them May to July no problems cause they start growing right away. If I threw on a citrus graft right now, it would get all soggy and would be unlikely to take.
The only issue with Parafilm in comparison to BuddyTape is that it's thick, but it is stretchy! So get it a bit thinner by pulling on it, and also, wrap from the top down of your scion, not bottom up, cause it will more effectively shed the rain if we get that. This winter has been wet so naturally grafts are going to be a bit more challenging compared to a bone dry year.
Bold statement. Here is another one. All I use is parafilm and my cleft grafts turn out just fine in cherimoya, mango, white sapote, and many others. I don’t think moisture retention is the problem. I wrap my grafts at the contact point with parafilm, then wrap again tightly with flagging tape to improve cambium contact. Voilà