Farkesht technical guide
How to graft fruit trees: the methods and the right season
Grafting is taught almost everywhere as a set of cuts to make — which is why so many people can describe a whip-and-tongue and cannot get one to take. The cuts are a means. The end is one thin green layer touching another.
- Methods this page covers
- 6methods
- Take rate competent work reaches
- 85%
- Weeks the wrap stays on
- 6weeks
Updated September 1, 2026Farin Kesht Taban Co.
Chapter one
One tree, two halves, two jobs
The division of labour between rootstock and scion is absolute, and it is the reason the whole craft exists: the root decides how the tree copes with the ground, the scion decides what the fruit is, and neither can do the other’s job.
below the union
The rootstock
Everything about the tree’s relationship with the soil comes from here: root depth and vigour, tolerance of lime and salt, resistance to soil-borne disease and, in the end, the size of the tree.
- tree size
- soil tolerance
- cropping year
- disease resistance
above the union
The scion
Everything above the union is genetically the shoot you cut: the cultivar, the colour and flavour of the fruit, the flowering date and the ripening date.
- cultivar and flavour
- flowering date
- ripening date
- fruit shape and colour
- Seed does not reproduce the cultivarThe pip of a good apple does not grow that apple. The only way to multiply a named cultivar is vegetatively — and in fruit trees that means grafting.
- Choosing root and cultivar separatelyYou can put the cultivar the market wants onto the root your soil will tolerate. Without grafting, one has to be sacrificed to the other.
- Changing the cultivar of a bearing treeTopworking converts a bearing block of an unsaleable cultivar to another one in two or three years — instead of pulling it out, replanting and waiting ten.
Choosing the rootstock is a whole decision of its own. Its dossier is here:How to choose a sapling
Chapter two
All of grafting is one green layer
Once you can see that layer in a stem, all six methods in the next chapter become different ways of doing the same thing: bringing two cambiums into contact and holding them there.
What is in a stem?
From the outside in. Only one of these can knit two pieces of wood together; the rest are armour or plumbing.
- BarkThe protective outer layer. It plays no part in knitting, but in bud grafting it is what lifts.
- PhloemCarries sugars down from the leaves. Plumbing, not glue.
- CambiumA thin sheet of dividing cells between bark and wood. The only tissue that can build new tissue and make two pieces one.
- Xylem (wood)Carries water up from the roots. Hard, and it does not divide.
- PithThe soft centre of the stem. It does nothing at all in a graft.
Three ways of bringing two stems together
The middle one matters most: it is what you actually do when stock and scion are not the same diameter. Leaving it out is why "match the diameters" gets abandoned the first time it cannot be obeyed.
takes
Equal diameters
The cambium meets all the way round on both sides. The simplest case and the greatest contact area — and the real reason for the advice to match diameters.
takes
Aligned on one side
When the stock is thicker, push the scion to one edge so the cambiums meet along at least one line. Centring it means no contact at all.
fails
Centred, touching nothing
The narrower scion set in the middle of the stock’s cut. The cut may be flawless; the two cambiums never meet and the graft dries out.
Chapter three
Six methods, six answers to one question
What chooses between them is not preference, it is the diameter of the stock in front of you. That figure leads on every card, because most guides bury it and it is the only one that actually decides.
Whip and tongue
Two long sloping cuts with a tongue that locks them together. The greatest contact area and the strongest union — given similar diameters and a practised hand.
Stock diameter6–15 mm
- Season
- dormant
- Take rate
- 80–90 %
- Difficulty
Cleft graft
A thick stock split down the middle with a scion set in each corner. The classic topworking method: simple, and it leaves a large wound.
Stock diameter25–80 mm
- Season
- dormant
- Take rate
- 60–80 %
- Difficulty
Bark (rind) graft
Scions slipped between bark and wood on a sawn stock. Only possible while the bark lifts, and it works on very thick stubs.
Stock diameter30–150 mm
- Season
- bark slipping
- Take rate
- 70–85 %
- Difficulty
T-budding (shield)
A T cut in the bark with one bud slipped under the flaps. The fastest and highest-taking method on thin stocks, and the nursery standard.
Stock diameter6–25 mm
- Season
- bark slipping
- Take rate
- 85–95 %
- Difficulty
Chip budding
A chip of bark and wood removed and replaced with a matching chip carrying a bud. Unlike T-budding, it does not depend on the bark lifting.
Stock diameter6–25 mm
- Season
- dormant
- Take rate
- 80–90 %
- Difficulty
Side veneer
The scion laid into a shallow flap on the side of the stock, which is headed back later. For difficult species and evergreens.
Stock diameter6–20 mm
- Season
- dormant
- Take rate
- 70–85 %
- Difficulty
Chapter four
The season is set by the tree’s state, not by a date
There are two working windows and each depends on a different state of the tree. Someone who knows which state a method needs can graft in a climate nobody wrote a calendar for.
- Scion graftingFrom late winter until the buds move. The stock is still dormant and the scion must be too.
- Spring buddingOnce the sap runs and the bark lifts. The bud grows away in the same season.
- Summer buddingMid to late summer, with a bud that stays dormant until the following spring. The nursery standard and the highest-taking window.
- Avoid: from mid-autumnThe union has no time to knit before frost. The graft dies over winter and you do not find out until spring.
The two states these windows are really about
Dormantdormant
The buds have not gone to sleep so much as not yet woken, and the scion carries its full reserve. Every scion graft is made in this state.
Sap running, bark slippingbark slipping
The cambium is active and the bark lifts from the wood under thumb pressure. T-budding and bark grafting are only possible in this state — and that one test defines the window.
Chapter five
The sequence, in this order
The one chapter whose order is not negotiable: a scion cut before the stock is ready sits there waiting, and dries.
Storing scionwood
12 weeks · 0–4 °C
Cut scionwood fully dormant from healthy one-year shoots, wrap it in damp cloth or sawdust and keep it bagged in a refrigerator — not a freezer, and not beside fruit giving off ethylene. Check weekly: any mould or shrivelling and it goes out then and there.
- 01
Cutting the scionwood
One-year wood, non-fruiting, from the outer sunlit part of the canopy of a healthy, known tree. Pencil thickness, with plump dormant buds.
Dormant sticks with sound buds
- 02
Storing it until the day
Damp and cold, labelled with cultivar and date. A scion that dries out is dead at that moment, even though it will not look different for weeks.
Scionwood damp, cold and labelled
- 03
Choosing and preparing the stock
A healthy, growing stock of the right diameter for the method you chose. Clean soil and dust off the point where the graft will go.
Clean stock of the right diameter
- 04
Cutting with a sharp blade
One stroke, one flat face. A blunt blade crushes cells, and crushed tissue does not divide — how clean the cut is matters more than its shape.
A flat cut face with no steps in it
- 05
Aligning the cambium
Bring the two green layers together. If the diameters differ, push the scion to one edge so they meet along at least one side.
At least one line of cambium contact
- 06
Wrapping and sealing
Tie tightly enough that no movement is possible, and seal the exposed cut faces so they cannot dry. Do not cover the bud.
An immobile, sealed union
- 07
Labelling and recording
Tie on the cultivar, date and method there and then. Three months later nobody remembers which branch was what.
A label on every graft
- 08
Releasing the tie on time
About six weeks later, once the union has knitted. A forgotten tie strangles the very union it was holding together.
Tie released before it cuts into the bark
Chapter six
Why grafts fail
Five of these six were decided before the wrap went on. A graft you open in June and find dead failed in March — so each card names the step to go back to rather than the symptom to look at.
Cambium never met
The commonest cause and the most invisible. The cut can be flawless and the two green layers never touch; the scion then stays green on its own reserves for weeks and dies.
Decided at: Aligning the cambium
How often
Dried scionwood
A scion that lost water in storage, or between cutting and tying, was dead before the work started. It does not look different for a long time, which is what makes it deceptive.
Decided at: Storing it until the day
How often
A blunt blade
A ragged cut means crushed cells, and crushed tissue does not divide. With a dull knife the best alignment in the world is wasted.
Decided at: Cutting with a sharp blade
How often
A loose tie
The smallest movement between the two pieces tears the new tissue. One windy day is enough, and nothing shows from the outside.
Decided at: Wrapping and sealing
How often
The tie left on too long
A forgotten tie cuts into the bark and strangles the union it was holding. The graft takes and then snaps off at that point a year later.
Decided at: Releasing the tie on time
How often
Stock and scion incompatible
The rarest and the slowest. The union knits and then parts cleanly at the graft line years afterwards. The remedy is prevention: choose a tried combination.
Decided at: Choosing and preparing the stock
How often
A fresh graft is a wound and a shoot with no roots
Two product groups honestly bear on a grafting question: a biostimulant to carry the knitting weeks, and a balanced feed to supply the growth that starts once the graft takes.
Biostimulants
Biostimulants: for a stock that has to spend its energy building union tissue, and to carry a fresh graft through heat stress.
Organic fertilisers
Organic and balanced fertilisers: after the graft has taken and growth has started, to supply the shoot being built — not before.
Farkesht does not sell grafting knives or tape, and this page does not pretend the rest of the catalogue bears on a grafting question. Buy tools from a tool merchant; a sharp blade is the most important tool in this work.
Chapter seven
The Farkesht tree grafting course
Grafting is not learned by reading, because the difference between a cut that takes and a cut that does not is the angle of a wrist. The course walks the same route with a camera at the bench: the knife on the shoot, the alignment before the tie, and the same graft three weeks later.
Orchard growers
Changing an unsaleable cultivar, replacing a lost tree, and adding a pollinizer to a block that has none — the three jobs grafting does in a bearing orchard.
Nurseries
Speed, consistency and take rate at a thousand grafts. The course covers hygiene, record-keeping and quality control as well as the cut.
Gardeners and enthusiasts
Several cultivars on one tree, reviving an old garden tree, and a first graft that actually takes. It starts with the simplest method.
What the course covers
Every module ends in something you can do, not something you can define. If you finish a module unable to do the thing written beside it, that module has not done its job.
- 01
Cambium and how a union knits
Seeing the cambium on a real stem, understanding what builds union tissue, and why a sharp blade is a condition rather than advice.
Find and align the cambium on a stem
- 02
Cutting, storing and choosing scionwood
Which shoot, from which part of the canopy, at what time; and keeping it cold without drying or moulding until the day.
Cut sound scionwood and keep it to the season
- 03
Scion grafts
Whip-and-tongue, cleft and bark on real wood, with cutting practice and successful and failed examples side by side.
Make and tie a complete scion graft
- 04
Bud grafts
T-budding and chip budding, the bark-slip test, lifting a bud without damaging it, and tying it correctly.
Bud in the right window
- 05
Topworking a bearing tree
A two to three year plan for converting an established tree, choosing the limbs, and managing suckers and trunk sunburn.
Write a cultivar conversion plan
- 06
Aftercare and troubleshooting
When to release the tie, how to tell a taken graft from a failed one, and what can be done with an unsuccessful graft.
Trace a failure and fix it next round
- Sectioned curriculumEach course is divided into sections and lessons, so you can go straight to the part you need.
- Pick up where you left offProgress is saved per lesson and the player resumes from the point you stopped.
- Free preview lessonsSome lessons are open before purchase, so you can judge the depth and the tone first.
- Permanent accessA course you buy stays open in your account. There is no time limit on watching it.
- Phone or desktopThe player runs in the browser. Nothing to install.
- Ask an adviserStuck anywhere along the way, post the question in the forum and get an adviser’s answer.
Courses available now
This list is read straight from the Farkesht library — every course published appears here.
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Chapter eight
Plans and how to get in
There are two routes to these lessons: buy the single course you need, or take a plan that opens the whole library at once.
Buy one course
You buy a course and it stays open in your account permanently. Right when you know exactly which subject you need.
See courses and pricesFarkesht plan
Opens every video course, the technical knowledge base and the species files together — and any course published while the plan runs is included too.
Compare plans
Basic
Register your orchard and keep its record
150,000 Toman90 days
Includes
- Ask questions in the forum
- Orchard records and care sheets for your species
- Our pick
Professional
The expert knowledge base, and every species
350,000 Toman180 days
Includes
- Ask questions in the forum
- Orchard records and care sheets for your species
- Care sheets for every species
- Expert knowledge base
- Recorded video courses
Complete
Everything, for a year
600,000 Toman365 days
Includes
- Ask questions in the forum
- Priority placement for your questions
- Orchard records and care sheets for your species
- Care sheets for every species
- Expert knowledge base
- Recorded video courses
- Private consultation with an agronomist
Questions
Common questions about grafting
The eight asked most often in the forum.
When is the best time to graft?
It depends on the method, not on a calendar date. Scion grafts go on during dormancy — from late winter until the buds move. Bud grafts go on while the sap is running and the bark lifts, typically mid-spring and again in late summer. The test is simple: see whether the bark lifts cleanly off the wood with a knife tip.
Which grafting method should I use?
Start with the stock diameter, not with preference. Up to about fifteen millimetres, whip-and-tongue or budding; twenty-five to eighty, cleft; above thirty and while the bark lifts, bark grafting. Then see which season you are in — the two together usually leave exactly one option.
My graft did not take. Why?
Five of the six common reasons were decided before the tie went on: the cambium never met, the scion was dry, the blade was blunt, the tie was loose, or the tie was released too late. So instead of studying the dead graft, go back to the step where the mistake was made. Chapter six lists all six with their step.
How and how long do I store scionwood?
Cut it fully dormant, wrap it in damp cloth or sawdust, bag it and keep it in a refrigerator between zero and four degrees — not a freezer. It keeps about three months. Check weekly; mould or shrivelling and it goes out. And keep it away from fruit that releases ethylene.
Will any scion take on any rootstock?
No. The closer the relationship the better the odds: within a species almost always, within a genus often, between genera sometimes, between families almost never. The harder problem is delayed incompatibility, where the union knits and then parts at the graft line years later. The remedy is prevention — choose a combination proven locally.
Can I change the cultivar of a bearing tree?
Yes, by topworking, and over two or three years rather than in one go. In year one graft some of the main limbs and leave the rest so the tree keeps its leaves. In year two do the remainder. Protect the newly exposed trunk and limbs from sunburn and keep removing suckers below the grafts, or the rootstock takes the tree back.
When do I take the tie off?
About six weeks after grafting, once the union has knitted but before the tie has cut into the bark. Releasing late is one of the six failure modes: the tie strangles the very union it was holding, and the graft snaps off at that point a year later. Writing the date down on the day is the cheapest way not to forget.
Can I graft from this page alone?
The principles, yes, and it is enough for a first attempt. But the difference between a cut that takes and one that does not is something text cannot hold: the angle of the knife, the pressure of the hand, and what the cut face should look like. Those have to be watched and then practised ten times. That is exactly what the video course is.
Get your hand in before the grafting season
Start with the video course — or request a consultation if you want an adviser to write a cultivar conversion plan for your own orchard.