The Tropical Fruit Forum

I hereby invite you all to attend Orange County Great Scion Wood Exchange on January 21st.
https://ocfruit.com/Chapter-Events.php

To get free parking, tell the fairground attendant that you are attending scion exchange event.
It’s used to work in the past.

Free entry.
Bring scions if you have some to share.

Rain is helping, but not enough.

https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain

Thanks. They are in the ground. How much water do you give per week?

A few gallons when you have a few days of low humidity.
With plenty of rain and no leaves, your guava trees should be ok.

I dumped 100 gallons of rain water on my in ground trees.
I’ll dump more from rain this weekend.
All guava trees here still have leaves.
Not a single leaf dropped since rain.

Too cold or drought.
Probably the latter.
I’m watering in ground tree once a week.
Every 2-3 days for trees in pot.
Tall guava branches loss some leaves from dry wind.

Your trees are in pots?

You can graft or air-layer evergreen tree year round.
It’s just slower during cool weather.

Do your guavas drop leaves over winter?

Cherilata T-bud to soursop.
Works on cherimoya and atemoya rootstocks too.
Graft to any rootstock you have.

Cheers!

Mango nurse leaf test.
This is why I’ve had successful grafts with mango in winter grafting here in SoCal.

July 16
Slice off a bud with leaf attached.
Seal the wound so donor shoot keep growing.



Insert bud.
Seal graft.
Tie graft with rubber band.




Cut off the end of the nurse leaf.
I use sandwich ziplock bag so I keep about 4” of leaf.
Fill bag with 1/4” of water then zip it over leaf.
Bend the 2 ends of the bag up over the rootstock then clamp the ends to support the weight of the water.

No need to remove any leaves or tip on the rootstock above the graft.




4-5 weeks later cut off the nurse leaf.
Trim rs back to 4” above graft or remove some bark above graft to let bud grow.
It’s ok to cut off nurse leaf after 3 weeks but bud won’t grow until graft healed, about 5-6 weeks.
By Oct 9th graft grows this big.
Trim rootstock above graft and call it done.

I have over 20 grafts of this type going on this day Nov 21th.
Success rate at this time is higher than cleft graft in spring, when scion is fresh.

With this method you can set buds 90 degrees apart, or 120, or any angle you like.
With cleft you are stuck at 180.

Try it.
The rootstock is not harmed during this graft.
Worst case cut below graft to cleft in spring.

Some varieties prone to splitting in the cold.

Fall is a great time to graft.
I’m still grafting, but I don’t use cleft graft at this time.




3 grafts on this 8 months old seedling.
I’m using inverted T-budding with nurse leaf.
The rootstock continues to grow while the grafts heal.
March 1st I’ll trim the rootstock and cut off the nurse leaf to force the grafts to push.

On bigger rootstock I make 5 grafts.
You should try it.
Worst case you graft again in spring

I would leave it alone.