Here at Daley's Nursery we propagate our fruit trees by different techniques. We
grow plants from seed, we grow cuttings, we make marcots or air layers. We
also graft plants and we use these different techniques for different
reasons. So today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what the
different techniques are and why we use them. So this beautiful tree is a longan
and this variety is called the Kohala. So if you want to grow a Kohala
longan which is going to produce beautiful fruit just like this and is
going to fruit in a short period of time you need to choose either are grafted or
a marcotted tree. That means that you're actually taking a part of this
mature tree and you're propagating it to get a small plant that's ready to start
fruiting. What is a marcot? Well a marcot is basically a big cutting that is
done on the tree and if you have a look here at our longan we have marcots
on the tree at the moment. So what you do is you take off a layer of bark and the
cambium layer and then pack that wound with some peat moss or we use coir,
coconut coir the cutting will produce roots into that coir pack once the roots
form on the tree you can cut it off and pot it up and you'll have a beautiful
longan plant that's going to produce fruit exactly the same as the mother
tree and it's going to produce those fruit straight. Now we also grow our
longans from seed and I have here some freshly picked longan seeds. these are
kohala seeds but when I plant these and grow them they're not going to grow true
to type so there will be genetically different from one another so there are
advantages and disadvantages of growing plants from seed. So firstly it's going
to be a really strong tree it's going to be vigorous it's going to grow into a
large tree. This is a great choice if you're in a marginal climate,
if you're outside of the natural growing range of a plant but you really want to
have a go at growing it, a seedling can be a really good option because of the
vigor that they have. But the disadvantage is that it has to go
through its natural growth phase, it has to mature and this can take many, many
years. So it can take eight to ten years for this plant to mature to start to
flower and fruit and if you have lots of space the big trees seedlings are really
economical ways of actually growing plants and really establishing beautiful
trees. I think they're great and this is a beautiful plant to grow, a longan
seedling. Now longan trees can also be grafted. I've collected a couple of
pieces of sign wood and what I'm looking for is I'm looking for something that
has buds that haven't actually pushed growth so I've just picked these and I'm
going to take them over to the grafting department and see if I can find someone
there who can be given me a few expert tips on how I can graft my longans and
have a greater chance of success.
so here we are in the grafting department and I
have Erin with me who is our expert grafter. Let's have a go Erin so
what do we need? We need a sharp grafting knife. Right. Very sharp. We need
some grafting tape. Florist tape is a double layer grafting tape. Yeah and
it sticks to itself. And we need the rootstock so we have here the longan
seedling rootstock which is what we're using. We're going to graft up onto
the softer newer growth so if we graft down here it's going to be really hard
to cut isn't it that's right, yes. Yes, and the technique we're doing today is
actually a top graft. Erin's cutting her rootstock, she just cuts down the center
so you actually want this cut on your scion to match the rootstock that you've
cut. That's right. So I'm gonna put this one in up about here and it's just a fantastic
skill to do, it means you can make your own multi-grafted trees if you wish to.
I don't know if you can see that but the scion sits in there quite nicely so
you wanted to show us how to tape that? We've got our tape and you just want to pull
it in as tight as possible to keep scion firmly wedged between the arms of the rootstock.
The idea of the tape Erin is to both hold the graft together but the other really
important thing is to keep the moisture out.
Absolutely, if we get the moisture in there then that's gonna lead to rot and a
failed graft which is not what we want, so keep it as dry as possible. As cutting grafts these are actually going to go down on the
misters and so there's going to be quite a moist environment so we want to keep
all that moisture out of this grafted area. Beautiful. Yeah.
So if you're unsure of what to choose for your orchard, should you
choose a seedling or a grafted plant or a marcotted tree the best thing is to
consider your options. So if you want to grow a plant in a container or a pot and
if you want it to fruit quickly, a marcot, a cutting or a grafted plant are your
best options. Because they're small mature plants they're going to be a
smaller and a more compact tree and they're going to fruit much quicker if
you want to grow a lot of trees and you have a lot of space seedlings can be a
really economical choice. You can plant out a lot of trees and if you have the
courage to have a go you can actually rework and top graft them later. You can
actually add different varieties onto seedling trees, you can use them as
rootstocks or you can just let them mature into them magnificent specimens
that they're supposed to grow into. So it doesn't matter what you choose, the most
important thing is to get out there and plant some fruit trees in your garden
enjoy the process of propagating at home and really enjoy picking your own
homegrown fruit
my name is Kath Kermode thank you for watching this video
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