BookTalk: Five simple grafting techniques

[Quick links] 

In Today’s book talk, I am going to discuss about my book “Five simple grafting techniques best suited for most exotic fruit plants”.

Imagine, a fruit 3 ft long and weighing 50 Kg or 100 pounds hanging from a tree almost 30 ft high! Probably you have guessed it right. I am talking about Jackfruit – the second most popular fruit in the tropical world, next only to Mango.

If you have ever tasted this fragrant, juicy, sweet fruit, you will never forget its unique flavor and would definitely want to have more. The fruit is so fragrant that the fragrance spreads almost 100 yards from the tall tree on which a ripe jackfruit is hanging!

But the main problem with this marvelous fruit is that it rarely comes true to seed. That means if you plant the seed of a good variety fruit, there is no guarantee that the tree that grows, would give fruits of the same quality – it could be better, but in most cases – inferior.

Added to this, the seedlings start yielding fruits very late – may be 8 to 10 years after planting. Also, seedling trees tend to be too tall – can be up to 50 ft!, and harvesting is very difficult, given the size of the fruit

There are hundreds of such exotic fruits that are not so well known in non-tropical countries. Many of these can be grown in warmer parts of the country, and the fruits definitely add a new flavor to the familiar list of apples, peaches, and pears. But most of these fruits have the problems I discussed above.

Grafting is the best answer to all these problems. By grafting, you can ensure fruit quality, early yield as well as a tree of manageable size. In this book, I  discuss some of the often-used grafting techniques to propagate these exotic fruits. Many of these techniques can also be used for other fruits, as well as flowering plants.

Grafting is useful not just for propagating a desired variety. It has several other uses as well. For example, by using a suitable root plant, you can ensure that the resulting grafted plant can tolerate various soil conditions, draught conditions as well as some root borne diseases. In some cases, you can use grafting to make the tree dwarf, so that harvesting is easier.

How about having multiple varieties on the same tree? You can save a lot of space, especially if you have a small garden. Of course, you can’t have Mango on one branch and jackfruit on another. But you can have different varieties of Mangoes or Jackfruits or any other fruit on the same tree, each branch yielding a different variety.

I have heard many garden enthusiasts, complaining about a tree that has become either too old and less fruitful, or a tree that does not yield good quality fruits – may be a wild variety. Such trees unnecessarily eat up space in the garden especially if you have a small garden and you would want to utilize the space better.

You can use grafting to convert this poorly yielding tree into a tree that yields better fruits – no effort needed to uproot the tree, no need to wait till the new plant grows into a tree, and at the same time, you can save space and invite a new member to your space crunched garden.

There are many more interesting uses for grafting.

For example, there are some fruits, that have separate ‘male’ and ‘female’ trees. The male trees normally don’t yield any fruits, but are still needed to ‘pollinate’ the flowers in the female tree. So, you will end up with at least one male tree among several female trees, so that the female trees can successfully bear fruits.

No need to waste space for a sperate male tree. What you can do is to graft a branch of a male tree on to a female tree. That branch can produce male flowers, and the female flowers from the other branches can get pollinated, resulting in fruits!

In this way, grafting has several uses. I have explained many examples of such interesting uses of grafting, in my book.

If you think that all this is too technical and complicated, no, it is quite simple. The basic ideas are extremely simple, and can be mastered without much difficulty.

You don’t even need any expensive or specially designed tools. With just the tools that you probably use every day, you can be a grafting specialist.

All that you need is some practice and experimentation. This book covers all the basic theory, tools that are needed, techniques, important preconditions etc., with lots and lots of illustrations.

So, if you are a gardening enthusiast, go for this book. You can easily become an expert in a matter of no time.

Where can I find this book?

You can find this book in almost every online store that sells books, such as amazon, apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, scribd and so on. This book is available both in e-book as well as in print book formats.

The e-book is fully colored. But the paperback comes in two editions – an economically priced grey color edition, and a slightly higher priced full color edition. Both these versions are identical except for the color. But when it comes to fruits and illustrations, you may prefer color edition. So, if you don’t mind paying more, you can opt for color edition.

Check the link https://books2read.com/5GraftingTechniques for a preview/purchase in these formats. This is a universal book link that would list most stores where the book is available and if you click the store icon, you will be taken to that store in your region. Before I forget, let me remind some of you who may not be familiar with Books2read.com, that the 2 is numeral 2 and not the word ‘to’


Bye then, till we meet again, week after next, with another of my books.