Anne's new grafting set-up 11-1-13

[aclum]

Hi everyone,

Well, I think I've finally figured out at least a variation of Delerium's "no healing or humidity chamber" grafting technique. So far it's working on a few test plants and, if it continues to work in all situations, it looks like

MY HUMIDITY CHAMBER NOW COULD BECOME OBSOLETE!!!

Which is not necessarily a bad thing . I shall repurpose it for something useful I'm sure - possibly just for seed starting or maybe tropical terrarium type plants.

BTW, as a combo Birthday-Xmas present for myself I got a Pilot Autodesk CO2 humidity monitor. I discovered that our "closed-up for the winter" family room already has fairly high CO2 levels and if I want to up the level my original breath tube idea works better than the "green pad imitation." Although the "green pad imitation" set up would be good if you weren't at home to blow into the tube a few times a day - as you could put the system on a timer to start up the humidifier and fan at intervals while you're gone.

My "piece de resistance" on the grafting thing for the moment is the following youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hffOWQAtVdU

Which shows a method very similar to what I used for my no-chamber grafts based on Delerium's photos and clues - see Delerium's Triple Graft Thread, making special note of the last few posts ! Delerium pointed out to me that there are a lot of differences between his method and the one on this video. A major difference is that he does no-root grafting. I used a rooted rootstock grown from seed. And, I didn't use the baggie as shown in the video - although, obviously, it seems like it doesn't hurt to use it.

As D said, it's so simple!! I'd seen that video early on, but it just seemed too simple to work, especially when most of the "pros" seemed to be using the humidity chamber and darkness techniques. And I do seem to have a tendency to complicate things !

Anne

[Delerium]

You are killing me Anne! Forget all the clear baggies and stuff.

Now let me make this clear - this is not how i do my grafting.. I have advanced a few levels and i no longer use grafting clips or anything purchased retail. I figured out a much better way to graft plants faster and almost no guess work.

I stopped using grafting clips and so forth for grafting as i have changed the way i attached scions to root stocks (kinda like lego blocks).. But you all don't care about that so.. we won't talk about that.

But here is the basics of how to get your plants to take.. This is probably the most basic way i can explain this. This method is obsolete in my grafting lab but it should work fine anyone new to grafting.

I prefer larger plants - mainly because for one its easier to slice and dice and merge them together. Always put your root stock and scion plant Parallel to each other and then do your cut so they match perfectly. I don't do this anymore because doing it this way is very flimsy and chances are the scion can get pushed off the root stock - and that's because of Roots! Which is why i don't use roots in my grafting. Anyhow.. everyone knows that so no need to explain that.

Once you attached your scion to your root stock with a grafting clip just submerge the graft in water. You can do this in 2 ways. Both ways work. You could just submerge the root stock in water and wait for it to get a little wilty then raise the water level to touch the graft to let it recover and once it has bounced back you can slowly ween it off the water... OR just submerge the graft up to the graft union as a temporary source of water (and not above the grafting clip). This will keep it from getting sad or wilty. Once you reach around Day 3 you can reduce the water level down below the graft union and see if the graft will wilt or heal without the water at the graft union. If it wilts then you know it needs a little bit more time and add some water and it should bounce right back up. Because the graft union is covered with the grafting clip it will not root but water kinda leaks in - enough to keep the scion happy. You do not want water above the grafting clip and you know why because then you increase the odds of roots forming above the union which you don't want. So you do that till the plant is healed and doesn't require water. Once the graft is healed plant it in some DE and wait for it to root and your done.

Because the grafts have no roots - its easier to get the graft union to heal faster. Having roots on the plants just cause way to much problems and to much babying and tinkering which i have no time for.

Hopefully this helps and puts rest to all the guess work. I can tell people are getting ansi because they want to do it the Easy way and think i am just BS'ing them.

J

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

Thanks your sharing your technique!! (Even if it is now obsolete ). It's not at all what I had suspected.

When, in a private e-mail, you congratulated me on finally having the light bulb go off in my head, I thought I'd guessed your method. Obviously not - but I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat as I had good results with the method I used. I'll have to give your actual method a try once I get some more victims to work with!

Anyway, what I did was thoroughly water both the rootstock and scion rooted in coarse DE. The next day I did a regular top graft using a clip. Then I placed the still potted up rootstock (now with scion attached) in another larger container filled with water about halfway up the pot and set things out of direct sunlight. First day had a slight bit of wilting but by the second day everything looked "good as new." I put the grafts under fluorescent lights or by a sunny window and they've been doing just fine. No baggies, misting, etc. So far I've used smaller seedlings with 1.5 mm clips or - with my multiple grafts getting larger, a 2.5 or 3.0 mm clip.

The roots are all more or less well developed to begin with (from growing in the DE) and "ready to grow" - no need to wait for root development.

So far, I'm happy with this technique, but now I have the challenge of figuring out your brand new secret technique !

Just for the fun of it, I might try using grafting pins instead of clips. I've seen ceramic grafting clips mentioned on the web, but seems you could also use a sterilized pin.

Starting various seedlings now, I was thinking that the healing chamber might be useful in speeding up the growth of either scions or rootstock in order to get better matching stem diameters for grafting (while leaving the oversize seedlings in conditions to slow down their growth).

Anne











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[Delerium]

Yeah the obsolete method is good for new grafters and its very hard to go wrong. If the graft union is secure - all you need to do control the water uptake. It's so simple its a Duh moment! How can it be so simple.. it just is. The plant is your indicator. First signs of wilt on the scion you feed it water and bam it will bounce back.

The new way i graft - no chance of wilt. It works better and more possibilities of what you can do as far as graft variations.

[aclum]

How I'm picturing using one of those little cocktail straws as a grafting pin ! Hum.... wonder if I can find any lying around the house !

Anne

[Delerium]

When i use cuttings or harvest cuttings the first thing i do is put them in water and let it sit before i get a chance to graft them. So having the scion well watered might account for better success with Old grafting ways. Thought I'd add that in here. It made sense to me when you mentioned that you watered your rooted scion and rootstock before you did the graft.

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by aclum

How I'm picturing using one of those little cocktail straws as a grafting pin ! Hum.... wonder if I can find any lying around the house !

Anne

Split Aquarium tubing still works the best . When i first started grafting that's what i used. Then i abandoned it to get grafting clips.. now I went back to it because it holds the grafts in place better with a slight mod hehe.

[ddsack]

You two are the Graft Meisters! I get so much out of reading this thread. I've never felt any need to graft, but after watching the video link that Anne posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hffOWQAtVdU
I thought even I could do that. I've always associated grafting with the disease resistance aspect. In the video the presenter stresses earlier maturing, which I was not aware of. If true, I may have a reason to try one (or three) of your methods. Have both of you noticed consistently earlier maturing tomatoes on grafted Maxifort, if that was what you were aiming for in a particular graft?

[rwsacto]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Yeah the obsolete method is good for new grafters and its very hard to go wrong. . . .

Thank you for revealing the secrets to upgrade my grafting method from ancient to obsolete!

In a couple of months I may be able to provide testimony on how it can go wrong

And Happy Holidays to all the grafters.

Rick

[aclum]

LOL, Rick!

"from ancient to obsolete" - it does seem that way sometimes, doesn't it? In my case, it often feels like I'm going back to first base . But that's what makes it so fun and challenging!


ddsack,

I think Delerium may be the grafting meister, but I'm still trying to figure things out so I can get some consistency. I do think I'm getting a bit closer to my goals though.

To answer your question...... Last season for my spring crop I just grafted to regular cultivars to get experience in grafting and, frankly, I couldn't see much difference between the grafted and ungrafted plants. I should note that I really don't have any known soil borne diseases and was generally looking for an overall improvement in growth, production, earliness, vigor, etc. For the fall crop, I only had 3 pairs of grafted plants (as I've written about before). In one, the graft was a definite improvement in health of the variety, in the second pair the graft did a bit better, and in the third pair there was basically no difference. However, the season was cut short by cold weather and I don't think the grafts really had time to "show their stuff."

Regardless, I personally just think that grafting is a fun thing to do - so I recommend that you give it a try!

Anne

[rnewste]

Anne (and all),

Thanks for all the "pioneering" work you are doing here. It is VERY encouraging. I am starting my rootstock next week; then the scions a week later, I am just starting out - so will go "old-school" with grafting clips, etc. No fancy humidity chamber - a covered Rubbermaid tote will have to do.

Raybo

[aclum]

Hi Raybo,

I'm happy to hear that you'll be grafting this year! I always enjoy your posts - on your earthtainers or inn-tainers, fertilizer tests, and general tomato (and other) growing projects. Esp. love all the photos you generally include. Hope you'll keep us all posted on your grafting activities too!

Recently, I've been getting away from the humidity chamber, but just for the heck of it (and because I've already got the humidifier), I've been wafting a "fog of vapor" through a flexible tube connected to the humidifier over my new grafts a couple of times a day. Sort of like a magic wand. I probably need to come up with some sort of incantation to go with it !

A couple of months ago, in response to a post I did about starting a fall garden, you predicted that I'd have tomatoes for Christmas. You were right! (Although they weren't vine ripened, they still tasted very good).

Anne

[rnewste]

I am about to buy a vaporizer to use in my Rubbermaid healing chamber. Question: Which is better - a cool mist vaporizer or a warm mist unit?

Thanks,

Raybo

[aclum]

Hi Raybo,

Definitely get the cool mist!! The warm mist is actually bad for the plants.

Anne

[rnewste]

Thanks Anne,

I just ordered an Air-O-Swiss compact cool mist vaporizer on Amazon. Size is perfect to place inside the 30 gallon Rubbermaid healing chamber.

Raybo