On January 13, 2013 I grafted a scion of Black Madeira onto a small tree of Brown Turkey that I picked up at Lowe's to see if it might increase vigor.  I didn't do a control (un-grafted) tree at the same time for comparison although I do have a younger Black Madeira tree planted in the ground next to it now.  I believe it is probably growing more vigrous than is typical so I'm satisfied with the results.  I picked a late season fruit from the tree this evening.

 

Hi Harvey

Nice tree and much nicer fig
Congratulations !

I have been waiting to see a  BM grown in your environment, and treated as it deserves
It will be a very prolific fig and the size you have shown may well be the standard if not fruit pruned.
In a couple of years  there will be various crates at the farmer's market at premium prices!!
If it follows its ancestors, pinching will not be required.

Did you bud or graft on the BT ??
Coming spring will graft or bud Violeta on DFIC0023, Belmandil and on a nice young wild.

Francisco
Portugal

That's incredible, Harvey. Congrats.!
I've tried to do the same thing but failed spectacularly.

Great work Harvey.

Yes, nice work Harvey! Wish I had the skills to do grafting.

Good work!  I have also tried 2 or 3 grafts on figs and a couple on persimmons only to have them fail.  It's hard to learn from watching youtube videos.  I think it would be really useful to attend a grafting class so I will need to keep my eyes open for this in my area.  I want to try grafting a couple Col de Dames and maybe Black Madeira onto a Florea rootstock next Spring.

Harvey, I really believe, from the little I have done that grafting improves the  growth and eventually the production. My Madeira grow almost 2 feet in one year (it was grafted onto the root still in the ground- overwintered in the hole, and now it is in a pot) it branched at one foot tall, and I removed an airlayer for my bestest fig friend, Slavi.  so, now it is a 8" stub about 1/2" thick and it is puting out 3 buds... I can hardly wait to see what it will do.  Many have said it does not grow here.

I will post later my grafted panachee for comparison... it is incredible... I learned grafting tomatoes from you, my friend...I have multiplied my Riesce to many more, by grafting its little suckers onto others...

Grafting it is fun.   That B M looks absolutely amazing.. hope you get many more.  If it was mine- I'd say is time to tie its branches down, so it sends out more side growth.

Am I understanding correctly that the goal in grafting is to invigorate a slow growing variety onto a more vigorous root stock? Or is there some other reason or benefit? 

Beautiful, Harvey. I'm wondering how low the graft is, and if BT suckering becomes an issue?

That's pretty cool, Harvey!

Looks amazing Harvey, 
I'm looking at the dryness of the soil and amazing growth of the tree, my brain is having hard time tying them together...LOL

Thanks everybody for the encouraging responses.  I used a cleft graft for the graft because it's worked well for me in the past.  I am very successful in grafting just about anything but, for reasons I don't understand, budding have always been much more difficult for me so I typically just avoid budding (even for citrus).  The graft is made about 8" above soil level, I believe (was done when a potted BT was in my greenhouse for about 3-4 weeks, waiting until it was showing some growth before making the graft).  The biggest thing with grafting is to make sure the cambium layers are aligned and, since bark thickness may be different on rootstock than scion, I suspect some people may make a mistake by aligning the outer bark surface.  I wrap the scion with Parafilm (BuddyTape, actually), use a grafting rubber for the union (cut rubber band would be fine), and then wrap the scion with more Parafilm.  If weeping of the union is excessive, I will sometimes make diagonal cuts in different areas a few inches below the union to slow that down since I suspect excessive sap/latex may inhibit healing of the graft union.  I don't think I'm as good as a grafter as Grasa has become!  Still no success in root grafts for me.

I don't believe it's been talked about much lately but years ago in the infancy of this forum it was commonly said that Black Madeira was difficult to root.  I've not investigated the root system of other Black Madeira trees I have growing but this background lead me to believe it was worth trying other rootstock for Black Madeira.

Suckering has not been a significant issue.  I trimmed off some growth emerging from the trunk below the graft union a couple of months ago and all of the growth in the photo is from the Black Madeira.  I believe I pretty much had this tree pruned to a 15" single trunk at the beginning of the year since I wanted new growth to be able to train on the same wire supporting my drip line.  So pretty much 4'-6' of growth on several branches this year.

Aaron, the soil is not very dry but the soil does crack near the surface a lot because of clay and silt content.  Water table is at about 3'-4' right now and will raise during the winter months, thus planting the trees on a berm.  The trees are irrigated with drip.  I had been running drip for just an hour or so about once a week figuring roots will go down to lower moisture but have been running drip much longer lately in hopes that will speed up fruit ripening on the last of my fruit.  A recent soil test also revealed I have some sodium in the soil so I'm trying to leach that away from the trees (source of sodium is unknown, was a bit of a surprise).  I also discovered potassium level is very low and that will be addressed with potash and I'll apply gypsum as well to help deal with sodium.  I'm not set up at present to fertigate this orchard but may change that next spring.

Harvey,

How much of the tree in the picture is Black Madeira and how much is Brown Turkey?

Did you graft just above the soil line or are just one of the branches pictured BM?

Fruit looks good too.

Rich, I wrote above in my preceding post, that all growth in the photo is Black Madeira and that my graft is about 8" above soil.  There were some suckers of BT coming from trunk but those were removed about two months ago and no re-growth yet.

Rich, hadn't thought of that, but maybe something worth looking into.  I've usually grafted onto a larger tree but shipped smaller trees for selling since they are easier/cheaper to ship.  Maybe could do whip/tongue grafts on smaller trees or give budding a try again.

Thank you Harvey for this great post! ... and good luck on all your future grafts
I am glad you have given us all that great detail of what you have done and.. shown/documented the nice results.
Congrats !
The subject has been appearing in this forum on a few occasions and from the general feedback, I was becoming almost 'convinced' that grafting figs was sort of a sin !
 
Found this long, priceless and VERY interesting video   on grafting/budding  wall nuts and what is said here, will also apply to figs, practically with no modifications.

That sounds interesting, Francisco.  I had not even considered a patch bud.  Before I first started grafting chestnuts about 12 years ago someone suggested I might want to try patch buds like used in walnuts.  I searched and found an old one for sale on eBay and it has been sitting in a box ever since as I found bark grafts, cleft grafts, and whip and tongue grafts to work very well on chestnuts.  This double-bladed knife appears to have been home-made from two Tina knives.  Don't have time to watch that long video right now but will bookmark it.

Harvey,

Keep that 2blade Tina knife ! They are rarities now. Tried to find one of any brand to no success.
Will make my own with 2 old style shoemaker' cutter blades made by a friend .

For more common size tree limbs, patch or 'T' budding are my preferred.
For lighter stuff 'whip and tongue' does marvels.. quite efficient
For thicker root stocks, come the cleft, bark and rind series

One tricky part when taking a patch (whatever format) with a live bud from the parent limb, sort of snap-off clever push ( well illustrated by Alex on the video) one has to make sure that the bud comes off complete (with its heart! - a tiny protrusion on the inside of the patch just under the bud). Scion variety genetics are stored into this 'heart'.

These jobs are made early morning, no exposure to direct sun rays.. and  ideally, immediately after the New Moon day. Strong root stocks should be gashed to avoid excessive sap flooding the grafts..

Follows some pictures of successful patch budding of 'Inchario Preto' on Caprifig

Francisco
Portugal



Done in the fall 2010, stayed dormant through winter and sprouting early spring 2011.
Two patch 'rectangles' on the same wild limb.

   

One year after,....

 

 

 

This is great stuff, thankyou Harvey and Lampo for sharing your info. I have a healthy unknown that demonstrates very vigorous rooting and growth, but it could be a San Pedro type. I have been planning to giving it next summer to see what is does and then start using it as a root stock for some varieties such as BM that don't show strong root growth.

I wish I had a grandfather like him.

For the bargain price of $100 you can buy a budding knife like I bought 10 years or so ago....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271646590848

Okay, with Francisco's encouragement, I've embarked upon some further experimenting.  I don't have a large Brown Turkey to experiment with but decided that UCR 184-15 was a good choice for rootstock as it has rooted and grown vigorously for me.

I'm trying a two-pronged approach.  I dug out my twin blade Tina grafting knife (one blade is marked 671) and budded six Black Madeira buds onto my large UCR 184-15 in the ground.  I figure this probably should have been done a month ago but I hadn't really thought of it at the time and was buried in chestnut harvest at the time.  Still, I'll go ahead and hope that the mild weather we're having is sufficient for the bud matches to callus and I will then probably prune off those branches and root them.  Below is a photo of my UCR 184-15 with five of the buds marked with blue tape so I can find them easier when the trees are going dormant.  I also pruned off a branch from the UCR 184-15 and prepared two cuttings for rooting after I budded each to Black Madeira and am trying to root them now and hope that the patch bud will also heal and start growing.  This is using the same method I used for most of my rooted cuttings late last year and early this year, using Pro-Mix HP and wrapping exposed portion of cutting with BuddyTape (Parafilme).  I may try this again later but am expecting it will probably become more difficult to lift buds when the trees go dormant.  Maybe I'll use some grafts as well.
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Good luck Harvey and thanks for more pics. Up till this last post, I couldn't really see what was so special about that knife. Now it makes perfect sense to me, the bud graft and accepting scion are an exact match. Do you then always cut the bud piece a little larger and slightly whittle the sides to make an exact fit onto the scion?