Grafting question

[rocco1504]

Hi
I have a question about grafting.
I want to try grafting a plum tree that we have in my local church yard as its a variety that I've not seen before and it looks like the poor thing may be dying but it still looks possible that I can get some Scions from it.

My question is, can I use fresh scions to graft with or do they need to be taken earlier and kept cool first, I. E. Can I cut the scion and use it immediately ?, its just every video etc I have seen, the scions are cut and chilled first.

Any advice will be much appreciated

[boundtothesoil]

You can use a freshly cut scion if you have a rootstock available. The main requirement with grafting top fruit is to do it during the dormant winter period. One of the main reasons people store scions is that they are waiting for a delivery of root stocks from a nursery, or if one is talking about grafting hundreds of scions, it may be difficult to get out onto the land if the soil is waterlogged. Or, some people like to do all their grafting on a particular day, so I guess they save up their scions, collected over the year, in readiness!

[GF3]

You could also consider "Air Layering" a branch. There are many videos on YouTube of people doing this with all types of fruit trees. You would ideally do this in spring time. The downside would be you could end up with a very large tree, as it would be growing on its own roots - not on a vigour controling rootstock.
Here is a good video showing how.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGIg_MwbKR0

[Dave8abond]

No problem using fresh scions. Plums are a bit harder to graft than apples and pears so might be worth doing a few if you have/ can get the rootstocks. Make sure your cuts are as good as can be.

If they fail, try budding onto the stocks in summer.


Edit: auto correct errors, one of these days I'll learn to read what I've written before I post it :-).

[nickdub]

It is also possible to grow a plum tree from a cutting, but you may get a very large tree once it is mature, and it will take longer to fruit.

[rocco1504]

Hi
And thanks so much for the replies, I do have 10 St Julian plum rootstocks on order and hopefully they will arrive very soon, they were ordered with this particular tree in mind.

The only problem I would have with Air layering and cutting is not only could they tree be very large but it might well be a bit fragile in our climate as I know that the rootstocks can make trees more resilient to the weather.

But I'm really pleased that I can graft from fresh cut scions.

Thank you everyone for your help it's very much appreciated.