The grafting is a technique carried out since ancient times. The first references date from China at the beginning of the first millennium BC, and in the West from classical Greece. Authors such as Aristotle and even Roman agricultural writers already describe it in detail regarding the techniques used at the time.
For centuries this practice continued and was significantly stimulated in the Renaissance, not until the 17th century when the role of tissues in the grafting process was studied and the foundations of modern knowledge on it were laid. As of the 1920s, there are already scientific descriptions of the spike graft and as of the 1950s, it became popular in cucurbits and solanaceae.
technically we can define grafting as a method of non-natural vegetative propagation of plants , in which a portion of tissue from another plant joins over the already settled one, in such a way that the set of both grows as a single organism. As a fundamental advantage we can highlight thatthe graft allows to join, in a single copy, two compatible plants in order to converge the advantages provided by each one of them, improving the original.
GRAFT TYPES
The approach grafting It consists of welding 2 branches from two whole plants. They have to be planted close or together if they are in pots or one planted in the ground and another in a pot. To carry out the graft we have to make a cut in each branch, removing a few centimeters of bark with a little wood, the parts removed being equal and at the same height. Next, they are joined by fitting them together, keeping in mind that the key is that the cambium of the rootstock and the cambium of the variety remain in contact. After doing the above, tie and cover everything withputty or grafting paste.
When the union between the two plants is made, we have to cut above the union the plant that we do not want to form the trunk and branches, but only provide its roots. We can leave it with two feet (two root systems), to give more vigor to the graft, or we can cut the foot of the grafted plant below the graft. This foot can sprout again and serve to graft another spike.
This method replaces the stem end of the rootstock with a graft containing some buds . Both must be of a similar diameter so that the crusts can contact. The main stem is cut from the rootstock and a V-shaped slit is made. The graft, called a spike, is a small branch containing about two or three buds. The cut must be beveled, so that it can be inserted into the groove of the pattern. To prevent them from separating, the joint is usually wrapped with some raffia tape, cotton or other organic material, or with some adhesive or wax.
Also called gusset graft or english graft , use a piece of bark from the graft by inserting it under the bark of the rootstock trunk through a T-shaped cut, so that it remains protected and trapped. The graft piece is obtained from a young branch.
It is practiced when the bark detaches more easily from the wood, and around 15 or 20 days after grafting, the tie straps are removed due to the danger of strangulation, since the plant fattens. When the grafted buds sprout, the top of the rootstock is cut off to allow them to be the dominant branch.
