Fruit propagation service

I remember reading a while ago about a nursery which offered a propagation service ie they would graft or bud from material you supplied.

Anybody know which nursery offers this?

 

You could try asking around local nurseries.
I'm sure if you made enquiries you would come up with someone prepared to help you out for a small fee.

 

Why not just try it yourself? How hard can it be (famous last words )? Obviously do your homework first to make sure you understand what you're doing.

I'm going to have a bash at grafting some buds of my apple trees on to my crab apples when they are a bit bigger. I've read up on it, and it sounds more fiddly than difficult.

 

I've done it myself years ago, I dabbled a bit at grafting.:D

Problem is that you need the right rootstocks for the kind of tree that you require.
This involves getting the rootstocks and growing them on for a year before doing the buisness.

Its quite a lengthy process, but interesting.

 

I whip & tongue grafted grafted 10 apple scions onto bought rootstock earlier this year using parafilm tape and was wondering about when to remove it. It was my first ever attempt at grafting and I seem to have scored 9 out of 10. But I don't want to either break the graft or constrict growth and was thinking of carefully splitting the tape binding vertically and leaving it on.

I had a few spare root stocks, so I've planted these so I can earth up around them an propagate my own for next year, and I'm going to try air layering some 'waterspouts' on an old tree I haven't managed to identify in case the grafts fail, as it's getting old and it's 'twin' was blown down several years ago.

Any grafters here?

 

Scrungee, no expert, but you should be seeing a callous forming around the graft I think.

I think the tape you used is fairly elastic, is it not?

If so you could leave it on a bit longer.

Just make sure the new growth is well supported by a cane and tied in, to stop the newly formed graft breaking.

 

Thanks, I can't see any callous because the tape is opaque green, but it is stretchy (I stretched it quite a bit when putting on but not to it's limit). I hadn't thought about a stick, perhaps it would've been better to have added that immediately after grating rather than now being tempted to pull the grafted tree to the stick. I'll be careful.

Any idea how long before it's out of danger of the graft breaking?

 

I can only guess how long, I'd say at least a year, if you tie below the graft and above it acts like a splint.

Personally I would not remove the tape until late summer to have a look.

If things are not totally OK, you could then apply,some more tape for the next season, bearing in mind nothing happens during the winter.

 

Would using some more tape to attach the 'splint' be better than using string?

 

I see no reason why not Scrungee.

It would then give, as the stem swells, but you can tie it fairly tight also.