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NE Arkansas

Not to pollute the contest page, I think a lot of graft failure depends on multiple things, water or rain could be an issue, So my question is when you were getting all the rain did you have a melon set yet? If so how far out was the melon set? How big were the plants?

2/7/2018 3:32:22 PM

Liberty nc

It don’t rain here in the summer

2/7/2018 5:40:53 PM

Arden, NC

Jeremy, Come to NC March 10th, in addition to Chris Kent and Andrew Vial demonstrating grafting techniques we will have a doctorial graduate student speak who is doing a tremendous amount of work on commercial grafting he will have many insights into grafting it's strengths and weaknesses. Additionally he will be able to talk with a real world skill set about various root stocks as graft hosts.

2/7/2018 7:23:40 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Dang.
Wish I could come to that.
Somebody take good notes !

2/7/2018 8:32:19 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Only method I have ever tried was hole insertion.
Blowing the stump has been my biggest fear of planting a graft.

2/7/2018 8:34:00 PM

Arden, NC

ESheel31 is you want to come you are certainly welcome. It's on a Saturday in Winston Salem. If you are interested email me at letrfly@att.net and I'll shoot you the particulars.

2/7/2018 9:13:53 PM

NE Arkansas

I'm doing a grafting class in Hamilton Ohio on March 3rd. I'm just trying to help LBD out and see if there was anything he did that could have caused the failure. I feel like there are some things we as growers do that can cause the graft to fail and some things we cant.

2/7/2018 11:42:22 PM

Lexington, Ky

Any chance someone can create a video of these presentations? DVD format? I'd buy a copy....

2/8/2018 6:27:22 AM

Eastern Shore of VA

Thanks for the offer rookiesmom.
I’d love to go,but the chances of me getting down to Winston are as good as me winning the lottery.
Which isn’t very good.
Wish I could get home and get to Chapel Hill for tonight’s game !

2/8/2018 11:56:35 AM

Eastern Shore of VA

I think that’s an interesting point Jeremy.
I’ve often wondered with hole insertion if there was some kind of pressure build up which caused the stump to blow.
Kinda like a champagne cork.

2/8/2018 12:00:35 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

I believe the WR was grown on hole insertion

2/8/2018 12:23:58 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

I think you are correct gwarren,I’m just wondering if incorrect practice of the method causes a pressure to build.
I bet the Hill is hoppin tonight !

2/8/2018 6:05:57 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Yes the Hill is hopping but this NCSU alum isn’t interested lol

2/8/2018 7:25:15 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Well you will be Saturday.

2/8/2018 8:46:53 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Aaaaahhhh.
State.
Say it ain’t so ?!

2/8/2018 8:47:57 PM

Franklinton ,La.

Jlindley -I did have melons set
They were set on a secondary runner as I always have trouble getting a melon to set on the main runner
The plants were huge as it is hard for me to contain the vine growth and work my job.
Sorry for responding late but I can only jump on late at night most of the time and sometimes I cant get on for several days.
I have planted the real deal this past Sunday
Planted CC only and will wait a week and plant the rootstock

2/9/2018 4:53:54 PM

Franklinton ,La.

Dr. Richard Hassell is a world known grafting guru and I have spoken with him on several occasions about grafting as he does thousands of grafts every year all over the world.

2/9/2018 4:58:22 PM

The North Coast

What was the best information he gave? Anything on graft failures?

2/10/2018 7:20:44 AM

Franklinton ,La.

He offered to do my grafting for me and send back at the time I needed for my planting season.
He does grafting at one of the university’s and I elected to learn on my on for fear of not getting back the seed you send as they do thousands and my special seed could get lost in the mix
He told me the rootstock that they used and s contact to obtain some of these seed.
Sygenta Inc. I will have pull out rootstock bag from them as I don’t remember the name, I am going to use some of these seeds this year
I will get back with the name
My testing this year has been work Takii GL-1 and Takii Rampart

2/10/2018 12:12:55 PM

NE Arkansas

See I feel some failures come from a large root system and not having a melon set, with all the rain you had leading up to setting on a large plant the damage internally could have already been done and only showed up once you had a melon set.
Picture this....
We've all seen the flex hose water hose, how it expands and contracts, when these plants are grafted and get large amounts of water the rootstock is shoving water and nutrients into the melon plant and with nowhere to go you end up with damage internally. Once damaged internally disease and infection can set in. Once it sets in internally I feel it takes time before it shows up where we can see it.

2/11/2018 10:29:49 AM

Eastern Shore of VA

Interesting theory.
you are saying the melon offsets the built up pressure essentially by giving the root system something to feed ?

2/11/2018 12:07:30 PM

So for example if one would take two gourds and approach graft them together and after they heal then graft a melon onto it with a hole insertion graft then the two root systems would be to much for the plant to handle?

2/11/2018 1:02:04 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Why do we not hear about commercial melon fields with a large % of graft failures halfway thru the season or even at the beginning of the season after heavy rains? These folks use interspecific hybrid squash which I have heard blow up the stump about 100% when growing CC.

2/11/2018 6:17:40 PM

The North Coast

Lot of what we experience is new to watermelon growing and not seen before. I've seen the USDA misdiagnose this and received information from other great minds that didn't work out for us. It's possibly how hard we push them. We do know that rootstock pressure causes scion damage. My hypothesis is that the melon cotyledon are roadblocks to vascular efficiency as it grows. Thus failures at that location. My feeling is to eliminate the problem as opposed to learning to deal with it.

2/11/2018 8:18:11 PM

Bethlehem CT

Gwarren last year I had zero failures on any of my eating varieties. They were all grafted on shintosa. I think that there is something about the CC variety or the way we grow them that makes them prone to spontaneously fail in early to mid season on the interspecific rootstock. Other varieties seem to do fine.

2/11/2018 9:36:38 PM

Franklinton ,La.

Dr. Richard Hassell grafts to what we call eatin watermelons . Locations where they have to use the same fields for planting over and over again .He uses the Sygenta rootstock ( Carnivore and Emphasis) to graft to the commercial varieties. He claims they have very little issues with stumps blowing up.

2/11/2018 10:12:41 PM

NE Arkansas

I would also think their soil is not as hot as most of ours is either

2/11/2018 10:44:09 PM

Home of happy lil plants

N8 I think the cot roadblock issue isn't a thing its going to blow up anyways cots there or not

2/11/2018 10:49:06 PM

The North Coast

The cotyledon will leave an abnormality in the stem long after they have dried up. I have a cut stem in my diary that shows the swirling in the stem where the cots once were. There have not been enough grafts done without cots to say the results would be similar. All graft failures happen on the hypocotyl of the scion. I'm suggesting not to use the hypocotyl as part of the scion. The hypocotyl is a different type of stem tissue when compared to the meristem. We rarely have a problem blowing out the meristem, it's always the hypocotyl. So eliminate the hypocotyl.

2/11/2018 11:26:17 PM

Home of happy lil plants

I did as you are saying last year n8, It is not the limiting factor. The vine itself can only get soo big before it starts rupturing, the critical failure point is STILL at the stump on the melon side of the graft.
technically one of these was even the exact same plant that made the 318.5kent was just kept alive over winter and cloned

manyyy limiting factors we have yet to figure out

2/12/2018 1:14:35 AM

The North Coast

Did you happen to get any pictures of the failure? What else did you notice about the growth pattern? Or how bad was the failure? Was it immediate or progressive? Thanks for your input.

2/12/2018 6:50:53 AM

Chapel Hill, NC

I believe you are right Big Moon. We are doing the following:
1. Same grafting techniques they do with commercial melon varieties.
2. Same Rootstocks
3. We fertilize our melons and I'm sure commercial growers fertilize their melons although maybe not to the extremes that we do.
4. Our melons sometimes get too much rain and so do commercial growers.
Commercial varieties don't rot from the inside out but CC does. The only difference I see is Carolina Cross and maybe extreme fertiling practices. If we keep doing the same every year we will get the same results. It seems to me that sometimes the CC to gourd graft will be perfect at the end of the season and who knows why except perhaps it was a near perfect graft. It seems to me there is something in the DNA of CC that prevents long term compatibility to the rootstocks being used from being optimum.

2/12/2018 11:49:40 AM

NE Arkansas

Frank is that an idea or from experience?

2/12/2018 12:54:30 PM

Home of happy lil plants

vine itself ruptured, melon went fasttttt right til day 20 went from daily of 8-8.5 to 1 daily things hit the fan. dont have any pictures on this phone but i can look back and see what i can find

2/12/2018 2:58:08 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

You were getting 8 pounds a day Spence ?!

2/12/2018 3:10:21 PM

East Tennessee

Frank I don’t know if Andrew is still listening but I am.

2/12/2018 3:58:57 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Me too !

2/12/2018 6:08:19 PM

Liberty nc

If frank has words of wisdom about camels here in the states I’m all EARS! Pen still has ink!

2/12/2018 6:30:41 PM

Once Andrew gets this graft done then he has to figure out how to keep the two root systems separate so they don't compete with each other. !!!!!!!!

2/12/2018 6:49:52 PM

Liberty nc

2 separate watering holes for camels.....check!

2/12/2018 7:19:16 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

Lol.

2/12/2018 7:35:50 PM

Bethlehem CT

One cultural thing we do that commercial growers don't do is that we prune to only one melon. Could this be a factor? Pumpkin growers experience a phenomenon that is called foaming stump. It happens when the plant is big and has a young fruit growing on it. You will never see foaming stump on commercially grown C. maxima pumpkins.

2/13/2018 7:05:46 AM

Chapel Hill, NC

That is also a possibility Big Moon, if I had enough time to do it I would grow a few graft CC and just let it grow whatever melons it wants. Don't commercial melons get pruned down some so they will grow just several melons a bigger size instead of a bunch of tiny half grown melons?

2/13/2018 8:52:27 AM

Chapel Hill, NC

Here is some research on multiple rootstocks/single melon plant for all interested:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhi_Huang6/publication/273305704_Effects_of_DualThreefold_Rootstock_Grafting_on_the_Plant_Growth_Yield_and_Quality_of_Watermelon/links/5774dd3d08ae1b18a7df2fef/Effects-of-Dual-Threefold-Rootstock-Grafting-on-the-Plant-Growth-Yield-and-Quality-of-Watermelon.pdf?origin=publication_list

2/13/2018 9:05:21 AM

Franklinton ,La.

I have copied the entire thread , attached it to an e-mail and sent it Dr. Hassell to see if he would respond to our concerns about stump issues and grafting. If he responds I will relay the information in this thread.

2/13/2018 10:38:15 AM

Chapel Hill, NC

Awesome, seems several theories floating around this thread

2/13/2018 11:25:17 AM

Grant, AL

Are we seeing graft failures with several different rootstocks or only certain ones when grafted to Carolina Cross?

2/13/2018 12:57:51 PM

Now if one of those gourds was a rampart and the other was a bushel WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!

2/13/2018 1:19:58 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Charles I grafted to bushel gourd(lagenaria) last year and had about 50% failure halfway thru the season. I have heard interspecific squash fails 100%. By failure I mean rot from the inside out. My 214 had a hollow spot in the middle. I kept it alive with a fan but the growth slowed to a trickle. It seems the lagenaria does ok but still a high failure rate

2/13/2018 1:40:47 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Go for it Frank, report back in October on your results.

2/13/2018 1:43:25 PM

Corryton, TN

Grew commercial melons here for several years but none grafted. Target goal was average 2 marketable melons per vine. 20-25 pound size long melons. Rarely reached that goal. No pruning done on purpose.

Data I've seen shows grafted plants yield about the same number of marketable melons per acre as non grafted. Some research data has shown that grafted plants could have comparable yields with greater spacing which means a higher fruit per plant average. Maybe nutrient/water competition is keeping stumps from blowing.

2/13/2018 2:14:54 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Could very well be brotherdave. All we need now is somebody to 'take one for the team' and grow about 10 grafted CC like they do commercial varieties and prove the theory.

2/13/2018 2:27:53 PM

Corryton, TN

Already in the plans for this year. May need an expert to graft some.

2/13/2018 4:15:16 PM

Corryton, TN

Not really trying to prove any theory just trying to learn. More curios as to difference in weight gains between graft types and traditional if any. Same seed, same patch, same drip line, same everything I can control.

2/13/2018 4:22:56 PM

NE Arkansas

We had 10 grafted plants last year
1 stump failed early (set the melon too close to stump)(182.5)
2 leaked from dap 25 (291.4, 253.4)
1 stump failed about dap 80 or 85 (298.5)
1 fruit got sunburned on dap 45 (170.4 BR)
I damaged a main vine (175 JBD)
Storm broke a main vine and I remade the main with a side w/ pollination at 18 ft (214.5
I set a melon on a tiny plant just to see what happened (219.5)
Reset a plant from main at 14 ft to finger vine because of shape (253.5)
No issues on 150 sq ft plant trial (262)

2/13/2018 9:42:21 PM

NE Arkansas

So really on 10 grafted plants I had 1 early failure and 1 late failure. The 291.4 was gaining over a lb a day when I picked it.

2/13/2018 9:51:25 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

How did you treat the leaking stumps ?

2/13/2018 10:14:50 PM

NE Arkansas

One small fan per stump

2/13/2018 11:50:44 PM

NE Arkansas

And I painted on some daconil

2/13/2018 11:51:20 PM

Chapel Hill, NC

Well that is good news Jeremy that even with leaking stumps big melons can still be grown.

2/14/2018 7:18:23 AM

Bethlehem CT

Jeremy you had a heck of a year!

2/14/2018 7:20:10 AM

Omaha, Nebraska

Has anyone left the original vine on the roots while grafting on the melon scion? i.e. let the gourd or pumpkin vine grow (don't let any of its fruit set) to feed the melon?

2/14/2018 11:48:18 AM

The North Coast

Heya Spence, thinking more about the vine graft. From your experience, was there anything bad that you saw with that technique? And ruptured vine, was that a length ways crack or did the graft weaken? Thanks.

2/28/2018 7:28:23 AM