Grafting

Grafted apple tree Malus sp., consolidated 'V' graft

Newly grafted cherry tree, tape has been used to bind the rootstock and scion at the graft and tar paint to protect the cut end of the scion from desiccation. The buds will burst within the next few weeks to produce leaves and shoots

A grafted tree showing two different color blossoms

Grafting is a method of asexual plant propagation widely used in agriculture and horticulture where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with those of another. It is most commonly used for the propagation of trees and shrubs grown commercially.

In most cases, one plant is selected for its roots, and this is called the stock or rootstock. The other plant is selected for its stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion. The scion contains the desired genes to be duplicated in future production by the stock/scion plant.

In stem grafting, a common grafting method, a shoot of a selected, desired plant cultivar is grafted onto the stock of another type. In another common form called budding, a dormant side bud is grafted on the stem of another stock plant, and when it has fused successfully, it is encouraged to grow by cutting out the stem above the new bud.

For successful grafting to take place, the vascular cambium tissues of the stock and scion plants must be placed in contact with each other. Both tissues must be kept alive until the graft has taken, usually a period of a few weeks. Successful grafting only requires that a vascular connection take place between the two tissues. A physical weak point often still occurs at the graft, because the structural tissue of the two distinct plants, such as wood, may not fuse.

Advantages

• Dwarfing: To induce dwarfing or cold tolerance or other characteristics to the scion. Most apple trees in modern orchards are grafted on to dwarf or semi-dwarf trees planted at high density. They provide more fruit per unit of land, higher quality fruit, and reduce the danger of accidents by harvest crews working on ladders.
• Ease of propagation: Because the scion is difficult to propagate vegetatively by other means, such as by cuttings. In this case, cuttings of an easily rooted plant are used to provide a rootstock. In some cases, the scion may be easily propagated, but grafting may still be used because it is commercially the most cost-effective way of raising a particular type of plant.
• Hybrid breeding: To speed maturity of hybrids in fruit tree breeding programs. Hybrid seedlings may take ten or more years to flower and fruit on their own roots. Grafting can reduce the time to flowering and shorten the breeding program.
• Hardiness: Because the scion has weak roots or the roots of the stock plants have roots tolerant of difficult conditions. e.g. many showy Western Australian plants are sensitive to dieback on heavy soils, common in urban gardens, and are grafted onto hardier eastern Australian relatives. Grevilleas and eucalypts are examples.
• Sturdiness: To provide a strong, tall trunk for certain ornamental shrubs and trees. In these cases, a graft is made at a desired height on a stock plant with a strong stem. This is used to raise 'standard' roses, which are rose bushes on a high stem, and it is also used for some ornamental trees, such as certain weeping cherries.
• Pollen source: To provide pollenizers. For example, in tightly planted or badly planned apple orchards of a single variety, limbs of crab apple may be grafted at regularly spaced intervals onto trees down rows, say every fourth tree. This takes care of pollen needs at blossom time, yet does not confuse pickers who might otherwise mix varieties while harvesting, as the mature crab apples are so distinct from other apple varieties.
• Repair: To repair damage to the trunk of a tree that would prohibit nutrient flow, such as stripping of the bark by rodents that completely girdles the trunk. In this case a bridge graft may be used to connect tissues receiving flow from the roots to tissues above the damage that have been severed from the flow. Where a watershoot, basal shoot or sapling of the same species is growing nearby, any of these can be grafted to the area above the damage by a method called inarch grafting. These alternatives to scions must be of the correct length to span the gap of the wound.
• Changing cultivars: To change the cultivar in a fruit orchard to a more profitable cultivar, called topworking. It may be faster to graft a new cultivar onto existing limbs of established trees than to replant an entire orchard.
• Maintain consistency: Apples are notorious for their genetic variability, even differing in multiple characteristics, such as, size, color, and flavor, of fruits located on the same tree. In the commercial farming industry, consistency is maintained by grafting a scion with desired fruit traits onto a hardy stock.

An example of approach grafting by Axel Erlandson.

• Curiosities
  • A practice sometimes carried out by gardeners is to graft related potatoes and tomatoes so that both are produced on the same plant, one above ground and one underground.
  • Cacti of widely different forms are sometimes grafted on to each other.
  • Multiple cultivars of fruits such as apples are sometimes grafted on a single tree. This so-called "family tree" provides more fruit variety for small spaces such as a suburban backyard, and also takes care of the need for pollenizers. The drawback is that the gardener must be sufficiently trained to prune them correctly, or one strong variety will usually "take over".
  • Ornamental and functional, tree shaping uses grafting techniques to join separate trees or parts of the same tree to itself. Furniture, hearts, entry archways are examples. Axel Erlandson was a prolific tree shaper who grew over 75 mature specimens.

Techniques

Approach

Approach grafting or inarching is used to join together plants that are otherwise difficult to join. The plants are grown close together, and then joined so that each plant has roots below and growth above the point of union.^[1] Both scion and stock retain their respective parents that may or may not be removed after joining. Also used in pleaching. The graft can be successfully accomplished any time of year.^[2]

Budding

T budding

Grafting with a single eye or bud. Normally performed at the height of the growing season by inserting a dormant bud into a shallow slice under the rind of the tree. The bud is sealed from drying and bound in place. There are many styles of budding depending on the cutting and fitting methods, the most popular being shield budding.

Other budding styles include the inverted T, patch budding, double shield, flute budding and chip budding.

Cleft

The most common form of grafting is cleft grafting. This is best done in the spring and is useful for joining a thin scion about 1 cm (0.39 in) diameter to a thicker branch or stock. It is best if the latter is 2–7 cm (0.79–2.8 in) in diameter and has 3-5 buds. The branch or stock should be split carefully down the middle to form a cleft about 3 cm (1.2 in) deep. If it is a branch that is not vertical then the cleft should be cut horizontally. The end of the scion should be cut cleanly to a long shallow wedge, preferably with a single cut for each wedge surface, and not whittled. A third cut may be made across the end of the wedge to make it straight across.

Slide the wedge into the cleft so that it is at the edge of the stock and the centre of the wedge faces are against the cambium layer between the bark and the wood. It is preferable if a second scion is inserted in a similar way into the other side of the cleft. This helps to seal off the cleft. Tape around the top of the stock to hold the scion/s in place and cover with grafting wax or sealing compound. This stops the cambium layers drying out and also prevents the ingress of water into the cleft.

Successful cleft graft after 2 years' growth

Whip

Also known as the whip and tongue graft, this is considered the most difficult to master but has the highest rate of success as it offers the most cambium contact between the 2 species. It is the most common graft used in top-dressing commercial fruit trees. It is generally used with stock less than ¹⁄₂ in (1.3 cm) diameter, with the ideal diameter closer to ³⁄₈ in (0.95 cm) and the scion should be of roughly the same diameter as the stock.

The stock is cut through on one side only at a shallow angle with a sharp knife. (If the stock is a branch and not the main trunk of the rootstock then the cut surface should face outward from the centre of the tree.) The scion is similarly sliced through at an equal angle starting just below a bud, so that the bud is at the top of the cut and on the other side than the cut face.

A notch is cut downwards into the sliced face of the stock and a similar cut upwards into the face of the scion cut. These act as the tongues and it requires some skill to make the cuts so that the scion and the stock marry up neatly. The join is then taped around and treated with tree sealing compound or grafting wax.

The elongated "Z" shape adds strength, removing the need for a companion rod in the first season (see illustration).

Successful whip graft

Successful whip graft needing additional pruning the following season

Stub

Stub grafting is a technique that requires less stock than cleft grafting, and retains the shape of a tree. Also scions are generally of 6-8 buds in this process.

An incision is made into the branch 1 cm (0.39 in) long, then the scion is wedged and forced into the branch. The scion should be at an angle of at most 35° to the parent tree so that the crotch remains strong. The graft is covered with grafting compound.

After the graft has taken, the branch is removed and treated a few cm above the graft, to be fully removed when the graft is strong.

Successful stub graft, healed

Awl

Awl grafting takes the least resources and the least time. It is best done by an experienced grafter, as it is possible to accidentally drive the tool too far into the stock, reducing the scion's chance of survival. Awl grafting can be done by using a screwdriver to make a slit in the bark, not penetrating the cambium layer completely. Then inset the wedged scion into the incision.

Veneer

Veneer grafting, or inlay grafting, is a method used for stocks larger than three centimeters in diameter. The scion is recommended to be about as thick as a pencil. Clefts are made of the same size as the scion on the side of the branch, not on top. The scion end is shaped as a wedge, inserted, and wrapped with tape to the scaffolding branches to give it more strength.

Natural grafting

Possible deliberate grafts on a Sessile Oak in Ayrshire, Scotland

A Husband and Wife tree - Natural grafting in blackthorn Prunus spinosa

Tree branches and more often roots of the same species will sometimes naturally graft, this is called inosculation. When roots make physical contact with each other they often grow together. A group of trees can share water and mineral nutrients via root grafts, which may be advantageous to weaker trees, and may also form a larger rootmass as an adaptation to promote fire resistance and regeneration as exemplified by the California Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii).^[3]

A problem with root grafts is that they allow transmission of certain pathogens, such as Dutch elm disease. Inosculation also sometimes occurs where two stems on the same tree, shrub or vine make contact with each other. This is common in plants such as strawberries and potatoes.

Graft hybrids

Occasionally, a so-called "graft hybrid" can occur where the tissues of the stock continue to grow within the scion. Such a plant can produce flowers and foliage typical of both plants as well as shoots intermediate between the two. The best-known example is probably +Laburnocytisus 'Adamii', a graft hybrid between laburnum and broom, which originated in a nursery near Paris, France in 1825. This small tree bears yellow flowers typical of Laburnum anagyroides, purple flowers typical of Chamaecytisus purpureus and curious coppery-pink flowers that show characteristics of both "parents".

Scientific uses

Grafting has been important in flowering research. Leaves or shoots from plants induced to flower can be grafted onto uninduced plants and transmit a floral stimulus that induces them to flower.^[4]

The transmission of plant viruses has been studied using grafting. Virus indexing involves grafting a symptom-less plant that is suspected of carrying a virus onto an indicator plant that is very susceptible to the virus.

Herbaceous grafting

Grafting is often done for non-woody and vegetable plants (tomato, cucumber, eggplant and watermelon).^[5] Tomato grafting is very popular in Asia and Europe, and is gaining popularity in the United States. The main advantage of grafting is for disease-resistant rootstocks. Researchers in Japan developed automated processes using grafting robots as early as 1987.^[6][7][8]

History

Grafting with detached scions has been practiced for thousands of years. It was in use by the Chinese before 2000 B.C and spread to the rest of Eurasia. The practice was almost commonplace in ancient Greece.^[9] Without the development of grafting, heterosexual fruit trees such as apples and cherries would never have been domesticated, as their natural sexual reproductive method prevents useful genes from being passed on consistently.

References

External links

• Steps to inarching technique
• Asexual Propagation (with diagrams)
• grafting methods (with diagrams)