Grafting & Budding : A Practical Guide for Fruit and Nut Plants and Ornamentals

· Covers all methods for grafting and budding
· Gives detailed step-by-step instructions
· Clearly illustrated with photographs and line drawings

Grafting and Budding is an updated and expanded version of Grafting and Budding Fruit and Nut Trees and now includes the grafting of ornamental plants. It is a comprehensive and clearly written, practical guide on all of the grafting techniques the professional and home gardener is likely to need.

The book begins with an introduction to vegetative propagation, which includes growing plants from cuttings as well as from grafts. It provides a brief history of the subject, explains how grafting works and shows why it is now the preferred technique for propagating most commercial plants. The following chapter introduces the reader to the tools that are needed and the basics of budding, grafting and multi-grafting. It gives step-by-step instructions for making grafts, advice on selecting scion wood, production and preparation of rootstocks and after-care of grafted plants.

Separate chapters on budding and grafting describe the complete range of methods that can be used. The budding chapter covers T-budding, chip budding, patch budding and V-budding. The chapter on grafting covers the splice graft, wedge graft, whip and tongue graft, side graft, approach graft, seed grafting, grafting of herbaceous plants, machine bench grafting and top working established trees. The remainder of the book has separate entries discussing the preferred method of propagation for each of the plant species.

Donald McEwan Alexander worked at CSIRO Merbein as a Senior Research Scientist for almost 40 years and is now retired. He published many papers, reports and booklets related to grape vines, citrus and avocados. During the 1970s he led a program introducing various new crops and new varieties into Australia, including avocado, mango, cashew, custard apple, Chinese date and others.

William J. Lewis was formerly a Senior Technical Officer with CSIRO Plant Industry Horticulture Unit at Merbein, Victoria. For over 20 years he grew and grafted many different fruit and nut trees for research projects.