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Grafting Questions

by David The Good
written by David The Good

BW wonders if he can fix a broken apple tree:

“Long time listener first time caller!
This past winter (Indianapolis) I attempted to transplant a small (1/2”) grafted pink lady Apple tree to a different place in my yard. Well, events transpired and I ended up breaking the tree off completely just above the graft. I acted quickly and tried to graft it back onto itself. This has been about two month ago but as of today I can tell it is indeed still alive after a scrape with the thumb nail. MY QUESTION: am I better off removing this attempted re-graft and praying that a shoot emerges this spring? OR leaving the attempted regraft in place and praying that it “takes”?

NOTE: I am a total noob and this
-if successful- would be my first graft ever. (Definitely not sure if I did it right)”

My answer:

“I would leave the re-graft alone and see what happens. If the tree hasn’t woken up yet, you can’t really tell if it’s taken. Wait and see – apples do graft very easily. When the sap rises you’ll find out if it healed or not or if it’s going to re-grow from the rootstock. If it does, you can always add a new scion onto the rootstock next spring.” 

Sometimes “wait and see” is the best option. It’s hard to say what is alive and what isn’t until trees leave dormancy and start growing again.

Meanwhile, SS wonders about grafting one berry onto another:

“My name is ____ from Iran. I’m interested in gardening very much and very experienced in grating. Could you tell me please if grafting raspberry onto mulberry tree is possible? I tried many times but no success.
I really appreciate me if you give me some advise about.”

I replied:

“Mulberry and Raspberry are not closely related and so do not graft together. Usually plants within the same species graft fine, and sometimes plants in the same genus or even same family – but when the plant families are different, they don’t work. For example, you can graft a bunch of different types of apple onto a crabapple tree, but you can’t graft a peach onto that tree. You can graft peaches and plums together, but not a plum onto an orange. Oranges, lemons, grapefruit, limes and other citrus can graft onto each other, but cannot graft onto fig. Many varieties of fig will graft together, but not into another genus, like mulberry.
It is good that you are experimenting, though. Sometimes weird things will take (like pear onto hawthorn), but most times grafts between unrelated species will fail.”
Over the years I’ve tried a few strange grafts, like mulberry onto paper mulberry (failed), pear onto hawthorn (worked, but weak), fig onto mulberry (failed), sweet cherry onto wild black cherry (failed) and peach onto wild plum (took vigorously). There’s no harm in experimenting but usually the wider the genetic gap between scion and rootstock, the less likely it is that the graft will succeed. Most grafting is done inside the same species. Some grafting is inside the same genus. But when you get out to the family level or beyond, chances of success plummet through the floor.
As much as I would love to graft chestnuts onto my oaks, I doubt they would take even though they are relatives. It’s just too much of a gap.

Related posts:

Bark Grafting Bradford Pear Trees
How Long Can You Store Scion Wood?
The Curse of the Bradford Pear
Grafting in the Tropics
Bridge Grafting Loquat To Save the Tree
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1 comment

Wendy Rafalski March 10, 2021 - 11:24 am

Back before I grafted anything, my son snapped a five foot tall pear tree in half, leaving a strip of bark still attached on one side. “I thought it was a box elder tree.” He was three or four, so…whatever. We duct taped it together figuring it was worth a shot. It lived a month or more, but we got summer temperatures over 100 and we didn’t water it so the top died. If we’d kept it watered well, that sucker might just have made it. The tree lived and sent up a new central leader at least. Long story short, wait and see what happens and good on you giving grafting a go BW.

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