♬
My name is Dr. Charles Rohla.
I'm the pecan specialist at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.
And today we're going demonstrate banana graft or four-flap grafting.
And we're going to show you a new technique
called the “American Method” using duct tape.
Some the tools we’re going to use today:
a pair of hand loppers, duct tape, a small rubber band and a grafting knife.
The grafting knife should have a straight blade, two to two and a half inches long.
And the first thing we’ll do is select a branch on the tree
that's going to be a little bit smaller than our graft wood,
and then we'll work from there.
So we’re going to select this branch here to do our grafting.
So we're going to cut back.
And everything below it we're going to trim off so we have easy access to it.
And we’ll clean the tree up after we're done,
but this just gives you access to the branch
you're going to do your grafting on.
And then you’re going to cut the top off
at the point that you're going to want to make your cuts.
And the key that you do not want to forget
is your rubber band at this point.
You’re going to slip your rubber band over and wrap it around a few times,
but make sure you do not put it on too tight,
because you want to be able to roll it up and down on this branch
So we’ve selected our graft wood.
It's a little bit larger than the rootstock we’re putting it on.
You want to make sure that the buds are going to face up.
And the first thing you’re going to do is -- on your rootstock here --
you’re going to make four equal cuts.
So it's easy to start by making your crosses at the top of your branch here, so you have a guide.
And then, with your grafting knife, you're going to just barely push through the bark.
Be careful not to put a finger on the backside.
You can push the blade right through that wood.
And just continue around and make your four equal cuts the length of your blade.
And once you have those cut, the bark should slip easily away from the wood.
So this is where it gets the name four flap or banana graft because it’s like peeling a banana.
And you have four equal flaps there.
Make a fresh cut on your scion wood, because the end of the wood is dried out.
So you want to give a fresh cut.
And I'm going to cut right above the bud.
I remove it so I don't have to worry about cutting through it.
And we're going take our pocketknife
and we’re going to make four equal cuts
to match our flaps that we made cuts on earlier.
And we’re just barely going through the bark here.
You want to make sure that your scion wood is alive and seems that is nice and green.
So at the end you’ve kind of squared off your piece of scion wood.
Next you want to take your pruners and you’re going to cut out the plug.
Be careful not to touch your fingers onto your flaps
because oil in your fingers can kill the cambium layer.
And you’re going to cut that plug out.
You want to roll up your flaps so they don't dry out.
We're going to put our scion wood in,
match up our cuts to our flaps
and then roll our rubber band up in place over the flaps so it's holding the scion wood in securely.
And then we'll be ready to tape.
We’re just using duct tape.
This tape is regular duct tape that I've torn in half
and I rolled onto a piece of PVC pipe so it’s a little bit easier to handle.
And you just want to pull it tight.
Start below your cuts
and make one single wrap along the graft union.
Make sure you go up above it a full length of your tape and tear it.
You want to apply glue. We’re using Elmer's Glue.
You can use the white glue or the wood glue.
But you want to just put it on the very tip of your scion wood.
And just apply it to the top of it and that keeps it from drying out.
And you should be able to see your buds starting to push within three to four weeks.
And that way if they start pushing, you know you have a new tree.
All right, after you finish your graft
one final thing you want to do is put a bird perch
to keep the birds from landing on your scion wood.
And so we're going to use a piece wood that we -- a shoot that we cut off the tree.
We’re just going to trim everything off.
And we’re just going to tape it so it's higher than our scion.
And that way the bird will land up here and whenever they kick off,
they’re going to push off on this instead of on our scion wood.
Okay, this is a four-flap that was applied last year.
This is the new current growth.
And you can see this is our piece of scion wood
and you can see our flaps on our four-flap here.
It’s calloused over and the tree is now growing.
Eventually we’ll cut the back side of this tree off
and this will be our new variety tree.
Okay, this is a four-flap that was applied two years ago.
It was the same size of scion wood that we put on earlier.
And you can actually see the flap.
Right here is one of the original flaps
But this is how much this trees has grown in caliper and in height in two years.