I have started a fruit u pick and my cherry plum trees are now old enough to start fruiting. I want to increase my variety and have a plum doner for sion wood. Not sure of the name or type, but was wondering if it would be possible to do air layering on my chums and at the same time same branch graft plum on to. I need another 20 or so trees to fill the empty spots and if I can do this it would save time like years.
I suspect that it won't work because air layering usually requires interruption of nutrients flowing in the phloem tissue of the branch being layered, while grafting requires a strong flow of nutrients in the phloem tissue of the branch on which the scion is being grafted. Grafting does not work very well when the stock is growing weakly, and in your case the stock will be weakened by the air layering operation. However, I've found that plum trees take to grafting pretty readily; so I suppose there is some chance that it will work, especially if you only use a partial girdle instead of a complete one on the branch being layered.
I was wondering if to air layer it was needed to girdle all the way round I've only seen u tubes of the operation. I have done some grating on appls with pretty good success. I guess now I'll have all winter to think about it and maybe try in the spring.
I have had some successful air layers using only a partial girdle, but not with plums. And my impression was that they took longer than usual to develop roots.
