Garden

How to plant apricot on a plum in spring?

Nature cannot be deceived, but it is possible to use its widest possibilities for its own benefit. For example, to collect from one plum tree in the garden not only varietal plums, but also apricots of your favorite varieties. Read more about grafting apricot on plums later in the article.

What is tree grafting?

Since when growing fruit trees from their seeds or seeds, the resulting plants, with rare exceptions, do not retain the positive qualities of their parents, we have to resort to vegetative propagation. This is the name of the method in which a part of a tree with the necessary qualities, in the form of a handle, called a scion, is grafted onto a donor tree called a stock.

The stock provides nutrition and provides frost resistance. Priva, exploiting the nourishing forces of the donor tree, yields fruits with the desired properties known in advance. As a result, from one fruit tree you can collect fruits of various varieties of the same species and even other fruit species that are compatible with it in the grafting process.

Is it possible to plant apricot on a plum

One of the most striking examples of such compatibility are plums and apricots. After combining one apricot with another, grafting the apricot onto a plum tree takes second place in the survival rate of the stock and grafting of these stone fruits.

Did you know? There is documentary evidence that the practice of grafting trees existed in Ancient Greece already in the 9th century BC. e.

Gardeners immediately identify several advantages that grafting apricot on a plum gives:
The frost resistance of plum trees significantly increases the frost resistance of apricot grafts.
Apricots grafted to plums begin to bear fruit almost twice as early as grown from seeds.
Guaranteed preservation of varietal qualities, which is impossible when apricots are propagated by seeds.

Minor flaws usually include a less guaranteed survival rate than occurs when grafting an apricot onto an apricot.

Dates of the procedure

Apricot can be planted in plums in spring and summer, and even in autumn, if this occurs in the southern regions. However, it is best to do this in the spring, before the buds begin to swell. In this case, the best vaccination results are observed, since a long warm period after them makes it possible not only to take root well in the grafts, but also to gain strength before the winter. Depending on the region, these periods stretch from the beginning of March in the south to the end of April in the more northern regions.

Vaccination operations are preferably carried out in warm and sunny weather, since rain after vaccination adversely affects the result.

Did you know? Apricots not only plant on plums, but also cross with them. The result is a strange hybrid with a no less strange name - plumkot.

Ways to vaccinate apricot on a plum

Of the many existing vaccination methods, the following are most often used:

copulation along with its improved version;
in the cleavage;
for tree bark.

Find out how and what you can plant apricot on.

Copulation

This grafting method is practiced using cuttings whose diameter approximately coincides with the thickness of the stock. If a difference occurs, it should not exceed a quarter of the diameter. With the help of copulation, thin trunks and branches from 4 to 15 mm thick are usually connected.

And the grafting process takes place like this:

As a rootstock, a branch is selected that is in diameter corresponding to the scion.
On the rootstock there is a smooth place without kidneys.
The ends of the stock and scion at the same angle of 20–25 ° are cut using a special copulation knife.
Slices from 20 to 40 mm long are quickly combined with each other.
The connected stock and scion are tightly wrapped with electrical tape or special grafting tape.
With especially high-quality copulation, cuts are made serifs in the form of peculiar tongues, which, entering each other when connecting the stock and scion, provide a more durable grip and thereby improve survival.

All manipulations associated with trimming parts of the stock and scion and their connection must be done as quickly as possible . It is better if this time does not exceed 1 minute.

Split vaccine

This method is used in cases where the diameters of the stock and scion are from 8 to 100 mm. Two options are allowed: both diameters coincide, or the scion thickness is less.

Learn how to prune old apricots correctly.

Inoculate the cleavage as follows:

The stock is cut at an angle of 90 °.
A splitting depth of up to 30 mm is made in the center of the cut or saw cut. In the case of a large diameter at the rootstock, 2 splits can be made perpendicular to each other.
The thicker end of the scion is sharpened in the form of a wedge.
Insert this wedge into the cleavage as tightly as possible so that the cambium layers are connected in the best way.
If the cuttings for scion are substantially smaller in diameter than the stock, several pointed wedge-shaped cuttings can be inserted into the cleft.
Vaccinations are smeared with garden var.

Vaccination for bark

This grafting method consists in vertical incision of the tree bark together with a small layer of cambium on a rootstock sawn from above with a diameter much larger than the thickness of the cuttings. On one rootstock, several incisions of the bark up to 50 mm high can be made from different sides.

The process of vaccination for the cortex proceeds as follows:

At a distance of 40 mm from the end of the stock, a transverse incision is made on it at half its diameter.
From the notch down, produce an oblique cut to the base. It turns out a slice with a ledge at the top.
The sides of the incised bark are bent to the sides and a cut is inserted into the resulting space with a cut to the exposed cambium. In this case, the protrusion is located on the horizontal cut of the stock.
After the layers of cambium of both objects of vaccination are in close contact, the scion is pressed to the trunk with the edges of the cut bark. Then the place of vaccination (or vaccinations, if there are several) is tightly wrapped with electrical tape or a special vaccination tape.

How to plant trees correctly: step-by-step instructions

To learn how to plant a tree competently and reliably, it is useful to watch a master class of experienced gardeners recorded on video.

Learn about the features of plum vaccination.

Here is how the process of proper vaccination proceeds on an adult plum using the improved copulation method:

In the spring, before buds open, on a plum tree, all growing toward the trunk, rubbing against the trunk and other unnecessary branches are cut off, which will impede the access of light to future vaccinations.
After trimming, vertically growing branches are selected on the donor tree, whose diameter coincides with the thickness of the previously prepared cuttings of grafted varieties.
On each pair with a special knife, oblique slices are made, which along their length should coincide with each other.
On each of the slices, tongues are made, which are longitudinal cuts 15–20 mm long, starting from the middle of the slices.
Then the stock and scion are tightly connected to each other. At the same time, the tabs go one after another, which makes the contact of the vaccination objects more reliable.
Vaccination sites are tightly wrapped with electrical tape or vaccine tape.

Video: how to plant trees properly

Features of care after vaccination

As a rule, after a competent vaccination, no additional efforts are required. Sometimes in conditions of cool and rainy weather it is advisable to put plastic bags on the grafted grafts that create the optimal microclimate. It is also useful to cover vaccinations from the burning rays of the sun, which favorably affects the survival process. If the garden var used after the vaccination process contains petroleum products, it is better to replace it with beeswax or lanolin.

Important! You can not plant apricot in the immediate vicinity of the soil. The minimum distance from the ground should be 30 cm on young stocks and 100 cm on older adults.

It is not so difficult to get the opportunity to collect fruits of different varieties, as well as assorted apricots, from one plum tree. To do this, you need only a good stock with scions of the desired varieties, accuracy and patience.