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Owen, climate is changing....when we first moved to Nipomo local nurseries did not think we could grow avocados. We consistently had low 20's during the winter with long duration. Between freezing years I grew up different tender trees to the point of having some success. We used covers, return stack heaters (lots of diesel), and sprinklers. We therefore had limited success. Now, we see bare 28 degree winters rarely, short duration, don't see any frost damage. One year 45 yrs ago we had 17 degrees, killing many eucalyptus growing in the area. Our 40 varieties of avocados are mature, about 45 macadamias doing well, and white, yellow, black sapotes undamaged. Last year I planted out 6 mangos, put another 8 in the greenhouse. All will be out this Spring. I did encircle and cover the outside mangos for 2 nights last year. I will be planting out some other subtropicals this Spring also like Monkey Orange, Nance, and two lychees (Already have had Longans out for years). Don't know how cold you get in Atascadero, but life is short and planting out these "rare" fruits is a gamble. I'm more worried about our reduced rainfall. Then again, now maybe I've brought down the gods of the freezes as a result of the aforementioned.Now you did it Jack
For large diameter avocado rootstock, modified cleft graft works best for me. It has a high success rate, maybe even higher than the regular cleft graft. At least for me it does. Good luck!
Excellent advice from Jack, Kaz, Brad,and Mark I live closer to Ocean than Jack, but on Mesa and we have found out through many years that grafting avocado's in our area of Calif. works best in Jan-Feb.
Owen, the challenge for you in Atascadero is cold in Winter time so, if you do top work your trees using which ever graft but paper bag over your graft's that's what i do until they start to push new growth. I use modified whip & tongue.
Owen, you can go to CRFG-Central Coast Chapter.org and see Newsletter to check latter in Dec or Jan. for sure to see if we will be having scion exchange. I manage scion exchange with my wife and we don't know yet if we will have exchange because of Covid.
thumb size is kind of a hard size because its too big to do a normal cleft graft and on the small size for bark grafts. Vaneer is a good option because the sizes dont need to match that closely and you can put multiple grafts on. You could try doing some small bark grafts also above the vaneers. If you do vaneer grafts only, you can leave the top on the tree for 6 weeks then once the graft is well healed lop the top off to force the graft to grow. Also remove all other suckers and shoots off the rootstock once you are confident the graft is healed and has taken.
the downside to vaneer grafts is they usually end up with a little kink where the graft was. Its good to tape the scionwood against the trunk above the graft to try and get it as straight vertical as possible. So it doesnt grow sideways. Also vaneer grafts tend to be more fragile than clefts o bark grafts. You need to keep it taped and possibly staked and supported longer so the vaneer doesnt rip off. Especially with a larger rootstock, the graft can grow back rapidly and get heavy and want to rip off the tree. It can work well though you just need to do more aftercare with some types of grafts.
You can also do offset cleft grafts and just only match the cambium on one side. Thumb size is a little large to do this with but finger size is ok. The grafts usually take with this type of graft but the bigger the diameter and more mismatched the sizes are, the longer it takes to heal. You could try some of these types on the smaller ones if a regular cleft is not going to match up and do some vaneers under the offset clefts also.
