Grafting cherymoya seedlings in fall

[Plantinyum]

Hi, winter is near now ,so i start to get worried about the plants i planted in the greenhouse, amongst who are my prized 4-5 y/o cherymoya seedlings. I dunno if anything will survive this winter, which i heard is predicted to be a nasty one, so i want to propagate theese two plants, thought it may be late.
I have ALOT of cherymoya seedlings, one season old, with parameters of about 20-40cm heigh. They are stll thin at theyr trunks ,but i also have thin branches on my older trees, which will be perfect for grafting onto the small ones. I should have did aproach grafting onto them ,and i am wondering if i should do it now ?
Any feedback is appreciated!!

[Orkine]

Clearly an approach graft done earlier will have been ideal but you don't need to do an approach graft with your cherimoya to get a take. 
I have grafted on cherimoya seedlings of similar size and while I used scions that were about the same size or just slightly larger, one of the forum members has posted videos of grafts of larger scions on small rootstock.

The bigger challenge is overwintering the new grafts when the rootstock goes to sleep.  Do you know approximately when your cherimoya starts loosing leaves and how close are you to that?  will the grafts have healed sufficiently?

My suggestion is do a couple of approach grafts in case you have enough time (or the winter starts mild).  But also do several traditional grafts (cleft or veneer or similar) and if they all take, lucky you but all you need is one of each in the event the winter gets your prize trees.

PS, were you planning on bringing some of the grafted seedlings indoors to overwinter?

[Plantinyum]

Clearly an approach graft done earlier will have been ideal but you don't need to do an approach graft with your cherimoya to get a take. 
I have grafted on cherimoya seedlings of similar size and while I used scions that were about the same size or just slightly larger, one of the forum members has posted videos of grafts of larger scions on small rootstock.

The bigger challenge is overwintering the new grafts when the rootstock goes to sleep.  Do you know approximately when your cherimoya starts loosing leaves and how close are you to that?  will the grafts have healed sufficiently?

My suggestion is do a couple of approach grafts in case you have enough time (or the winter starts mild).  But also do several traditional grafts (cleft or veneer or similar) and if they all take, lucky you but all you need is one of each in the event the winter gets your prize trees.

PS, were you planning on bringing some of the grafted seedlings indoors to overwinter?

  for me they seem to never really shut down. Last winter the big ones overwintered in the house without losing leaves over the period, they started shedding leaves arround early spring,they were still indoors but at that time i think i got them too dry so it may have been a lack of moisure ...
Yes i am planning to bring the grafts indoors along with several ungrafted ones.
I guess there is time still,they are all growing atm ,but the temps in september start to get a lill colder ,anyway i will do today several grafts and aproach ones, hopefully they take till the end of september.
Thanks for the feedback!

[spaugh]

as long as you keep the temps up they dont shut down.  it doesnt even matter if the twmps drop at night as long as daytime temps are warm like in a greenhouse they will continue growing all winter and grafts will take. 

that said, its still easier to get good grafts with higher success rate if you do it in spring when the trees wake up outdoors around April here. 

[Seanny]

In the fall the graft works but the rootstock and scion won’t grow much.
So I keep all the leaves on the rootstock or the scion.

Sometimes I do a veneer graft with 1 nurse leaf.
I only pinch the tip of rootstock so the leaves feed the tree.
In spring I cut off the rootstock above graft and remove nurse leaf to force new bud.

Sometimes I do cleft graft.
The scion should be same or up to 1/16” bigger than rootstock.
Keep all leaves on the scion.


Side graft of soursop on cherimoya


This is the biggest scion I have at this moment
Biggest Atemoya scion I used had 14 full size leaves.
About 2 feet long


Cut the end of leaf off.
Bag each leaf with water


This scion is small so the leaves clump together.
I cut all to same height.



Put all cut leaves inside a water bag.
I use sandwich ziplock bags.


Add some water to big bag then cover whole scion.
Hide from sun.
After 7 weeks open bag a little each day to get the leaves to acclimatize to dry humidity.

With all these leaves the rootstock and scion will grow more than graft with no leaves.

Good luck.

[Plantinyum]

Thanks everyone for the help, i did them awready in a cleft style, on some of the rootstocks i left two leaves right below the graft point. On some of them i cut the rootstocks further down to get to the thicker points. I could have tried the method with the leaves, but i checked here for new into after i cut the leaves of the scion branches,left only the petioles.
Tomorow i will do the approach grafts and maybe some more of the cleft ones.
I have another question regarding approach grafting  which is;  since the seedlings are still hardened yet green growth, should i connect them to the new growth of the bigger ones or i can do them with say two year old branch on the big ones.
The seedlings do have a portion which has gotten woodier ,is this the best part for the purpose

[Plantinyum]

An update on the subject...from all the grafts, i only got two that took, one from each plant that i took the scions from. Hopefully they will continue to grow and not die on me lol . .

The big surpise for me were the two approach grafts that i did, they both seem to have took also, its been arround a month since i did them , and two days ago i cut the grafted branches( the seedling portion above and the mature plant's branch below). I removed most of the leaves and left the petioles which get absorbed by the plants and are falling.
It seems there is a connection and they have healed up, now i only regret that i didn't set more....<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

[Orkine]

Congratulations, that is good news.
It only takes one of each to preserve the tree but in your case and with the success of the approach graft it looks like you have more than 1 of each in the end.  It is almost safe to say you have saved you prize trees, or at a minimum you have some insurance
Update next spring and lets know if they overwintered well.

[spaugh]

Good job with your grafting

[Plantinyum]

Thank u both for the kind words, actually both of the approach grafts were set on the same tree, so now i have 3 takes from one plant and one take from the other. Yeah i kinda got lazy at the time and now i regret i didnt set more approach grafts,  they seem to be very succesfull....