How to properly graft fruit trees: tips from professionals

Grafting is the best way to propagate trees and shrubs by artificially splicing a part of one plant, the scion, with another, the rootstock. The procedure is best done in spring, in April, and May.

First of all, it is important to take care of protecting the shoot from infections and treat the grafting site with garden var. How and when to vaccinate fruit trees - read in the material of OBOZ.UA.

What are the benefits of vaccination

Vaccination allows you to replace one variety with another without uprooting the plant. Also, vaccination will be useful in the following cases:

• to form the desired tree crown;
• to rejuvenate a tree when it ages;
• to increase the tree's immunity, productivity, and resistance to difficult climatic conditions and diseases.

How to vaccinate

To make the rootstock and scion fused, you should make cuts with a sharp knife, without touching the cuts with your hands. The slices should be smooth and even.

Cuttings should be taken healthy, with buds that have not yet blossomed. Wounds must be protected from drying out and waterlogging.

What are the types of vaccinations

There are three types of vaccinations: in the split, on the bark of the tree, and in the lateral incision. Let's take a closer look at how to do each.

Split grafting - the end of the branch is simply split in the middle, to a depth of 4 cm. Next, on the underside of the cutting, you need to carefully make two identical oblique cuts with a wedge of 3-4 cm. The next step is to insert the wedge on one side of the split so that the edges of the bark and scion touch, and on the opposite side, insert another such cutting.

Vaccination for tree bark is also easy to do. At the end of the cut branch, you need to make a 3 cm bark cut, and slightly separate the edges of the cut from the wood. Then you need to insert a cutting with an oblique cut of the same length. Depending on the diameter of the cut branch, 2-3 cuttings should be grafted, and the distance between them should be at least 3 cm.

When grafting into a lateral incision, you should also make a cut in the bark so that the knife blade enters at an angle of 30° to the axis of the branch and slightly cuts the wood. Make two identical cuts of 3 cm each at the lower end of the cutting and insert them into the incision so that the surfaces of the cuttings of the cutting and the branch coincide with the layers of bark and cambium on the outside.

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