Hello, Has anyone tried bark grafting (as illustrated on this page: http://www.greffer.net/?p=439) with maples? In spite of having read and re-read the posts here, I've never had any success with grafting. Since bark grafting is said to be the easiest metghod for beginners, I'd be happy to know of your experience. I know it works well with fruit-trees like Malus, pyrus and Prunus, but what about maples? I have some rootstock, and a fridge for the scions ;-)
Let me first say I don't know if it would work. With that said, here are my concerns, for what its worth. If you live in an area of high wind (especially over winter when wood is cold and brittle) or heavy snow this graft union would be a high liability for failure. The varieties listed are those with stronger bark and my concern is that the maple bark is too thin and would tear too easily. Have you ever tried grafting in the summer? In our climate it is much easier to graft over summer for someone who is wanting to give it a try and looking for better results. But we also have higher humidity over Summer which helps contribute to the success. Winter grafting is great for production. In Summer you can assure that your understock and scion wood are both healthy for best results. There is lots of information out there on grafting, here is a video on youtube that demonstrates Summer grafting (its late summer in their climate, we have to do it earlier than September here). I'm not saying its the best video on the web, but I can say that this guy does a nice job of explaining things in detail and he takes it slow, so its easy to follow. The graft style he demonstrates is the easiest to do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqyhsVC4LTA I hope this Summer, I can film my friend Elpedio grafting. He is the best in our area and many of the wholesale growers in the area agree. If I can get the video of him, I will post to youtube and provide a link on here.
Thanks for your suggestions. Since I have quite a few seedlings to use as rootstock, I'll try different techniques, including chip-buddind: nothing ventured, nothing gained ;-)
