Longitudinal grafting

[tripsis]

After recently reading kada's thread on grafting crested cacti, I came up with the idea of longitudinal grafting, i.e. cutting a section of cactus lengthwise and grafting that to a stock. I'm not sure if this is a known technique already or not, but couldn't find anything on it.

The idea is that instead of cutting laterally, as would normally be done, and thus ending up with the vascular tissue as a ring, cutting longitudinally will result in the vascular tissue being arranged in a parallel line. This then makes lining up the vascular tissue of the stock and scion much easier.

A picture borrowed from kada to show you what I mean about the vascular tissue being arranged in a parallel line (in this case on a crested cactus):

Another picture borrowed from kada, this time showing how to align the vascular tissues:

So three weeks ago I decided to give this idea a go, with a TBM pup.

This is what the scions looked like after being grafted and allowing to bond for a few days:

And so as to not waste any part of the pup, I laterally grafted the base too:

Now three weeks later, the laterally grafted base is doing well and one of the longitudinally grafted sides is beginning to pup. The other side I am doubtful will pup, as the bond between the scion and stock has slowly pulled apart, leaving a cavity almost all the way through the centre, so I'm no longer sure if there are any vascular tissues touching. The scion is still turgid, but TBMs are pretty thick skinned.

Anyway, I would call that a success and will definitely be doing some more grafts like this in the future. I would be interested to try this with seedlings too.

Edited March 1, 2011 by tripsis

[M S Smith]

That is really awesome. I haven't done any grafting for years, but this certainly makes me want to try again. Thanks!

~Michael~

[mutant]

wow, awesome idea tripsis, this can be very helpful in monsters or other cases or strange shapes.

[Moses]

well done, i've been wanting to try this since i read you mention it on the thread you speak of.

i'm considering sacrificing a small variegate trich to this method.

[ubza_1234]

hmmm... if you cut the stock on a diaganal and cut the graft flat, i wonder how many grafts you coud get on the one stock... hmmm...imagine a heap of lophs up the side of a pedro or something! that would be awesome! it woud be a pain to clamp onto the stock, but there would be a way. :D

[solomon]

haha I tried the same thing with a TBM pup the other day.

good job

[tripsis]

Thanks, glad that this is of interest to some. I really think that it should make grafting easier as aligning the vascular tissues will be simple.

I imagine that if doing this with a seedling, you could use a much larger stock, but not have to worry about aligning the tiny vascular ring of the seedling with the much larger vascular ring of the stock, as you could just lay the longitudinally cut seedling across the ring of the stock and know that the vascular tissues should be touching.

[Hellonasty]

Nice work Tripsis most definitely looks like a success. I never really thought of this for normal plants I have a done a few crests in this fashion.

The only problem with seedlings is there must be an areole for the pup to shoot from, and with very young seedlings you can't even see the vascular tissue. How did you secure them to the stock ?

[tripsis]

Providing the seedling is cut down the centre, there should be areoles on both sides and the vascular tissue should be fairly evenly divided. The very fact that with very young seedlings, the vascular tissue is not visible, means that cutting longitudinally should theoretically increase the amount of vascular tissue exposed to bond with the stock. Of course, if you cut it and miss the vascular tissue, it would fail.

I think I used tape and cling wrap to secure to the stock. I hadn't used cling wrap before, but it seemed to work well. They were pretty damned slippery, so it was difficult getting them to stay where I wanted them to.

[mutant]

yeah tripsis obviously meant big seedlings. I imagined this for over 1 cm seedlings.

if not,

for babies, I doubt this could work.

[tripsis]

I was thinking for older seedlings, but HN mentioned very young seedlings.

[tripsis]

Here's an update. The other side has begun to pup, despite the bond separating considerably, so it has been completely successful.

[ubza_1234]

very nice tripsys. So if i understand correctly, Another advantage to cutting your graft down the middle is you have 2 cuttings to graft onto stock. So if one does fail, you still have a second one to play with. So to me who has never done grafting before, this sounds great. I have only one lil loph seedling and when its big enough i'll give this a crack. Cant wait!

[tripsis]

Actually, you could have far more than two, depending on what you are grafting. With that TBM, I got three, as I grafted the base upside down as you can see. If grafting a longer column, you cut could it into several pieces and graft the same way.

[mutant]

ubza there are countless possibilities, the shape of the scion is very critical in what you can do and with what success rate. grafting penis plants offer a good experimenting game, and actually the penis plant might be one of the best experimental stock for pup / long term [non-seedling] grafting for ethno heads. I usually tell people you can buy a random heavy clumper [multiheaded] cactus and experiment with that, but maybe the penis on tricho combo is one of the best bets for an ethnohead willing to give grafting a couple tries.

tripsis, were are they grafted on?? I still haven't got to graft much on tricho, let alone on so big specimens. I still prefer to spare smallish and thinny tricho cuts, as I love my trichos - even the PCs - so that I feel more at ease using the alweays abundant fast propagating stocks like selini, pere, and hylo for my grafts instead of my beloved trichos.

Also grafting on a tricho would be more 'anxious', for me and that means that better preparation and planning are a necessity as both stock and scion will be more valuable

[ubza_1234]

this will be the biggest noob question but i assume i shouldnt graft my baby loph till its at least 10mm across ya? And bigger scion is better?

[tripsis]

Mutant, it was grafted on a single multi-stemmed PC pach. I have no problem lopping a PC pach up. The tips I just root down again, meaning that it a while, I'll have more grafting stocks to use. I like grafting stocks like Pereskiopsis and Hylocereus, but they are only really useful for seedlings.

Grafting to larger stocks is easy, especially if using this method. Also, if the graft doesn't take the first time, providing you the scion large enough initially, you can cut both the scion and stock a second time and try again.

Ubza, it depends on what you want to graft onto. You can graft seedlings when they are tiny, if grafting to stocks such as Pereskiopsis and Hylocereus. You can even graft them to other faster growing seedlings. Research hypocotyl grafting. Some people do graft seedlings to larger stocks like pach, but I think it is more difficult lining up the vascular tissues. I personally think the larger the scion, the easier it is when grafting to a larger stock.

[kadakuda]

this method is used a lot with growers, especially commercial growers and breeders. hard to sell such plants, but its one of the best ways to produce quantity for future cuttings/regrafts.

the most important things i find is when cutting the scion parallel with the vasc ring, be sure to cut *into* one of the tubes. vasc bundles are more like a ring of tubes rather than a solid ring, so sometimes ctting between tubes they wont heal up great together.

great thread trips, doing a fantastic job. and i agree with mutant, TBM are a super fun and easy cactus to play with grafting!