grafting question

I have not done a graft before and all I know is that it is possible to do and have a general idea of how to do it. Not only that, but this is grafting a sick plant so I am not sure what to do here.

I have a buddy who is growing more or less under my instruction. (It is a long story why I need to help him so much but I do.) He had two plants in a Waterfarm bucket. One of the plants had leaned slightly on against the drip ring and got a soft spot (stem rot I presume) a couple inches from the hydroton pebbles. The plant still looks good, but I know it is going to die shortly. This is the plant I want to try to save.

He also has a male that he has been milking pollen from. He has enough pollen from the plant to impregnate half the country and it is getting close to the time it would start to die, although it is still looking healthy. This would be the root system I would want to use.

Is it going to work is my first question and what would be the best way to do the graft? Would I be better off trying to root it rather then graft it? It really only has 5 nodes and no shutes yet so I can not clip a fresh growing shoot, only be able to lop it off above the soft spot.

Any idea's?

I would just start this plant over, but it is the only seed from this strain that we have.

Thanks all in advance. You could be saving a strain for us.

Roots will form faster than a graft will take, and cuttings have a higher success rate than grafts/scions.

omnombudsman said:

Roots will form faster than a graft will take, and cuttings have a higher success rate than grafts/scions.

Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for the fast reply. I just hit send, haha.

Do you think this would be true even on the damaged plant? I don't imagine I have a lot of time to decide which way to go. I suppose if it would graft, it would root. I have done cloning, just not grafting.

Thanks again,
Flabs

Haha, no worries.

Well, what do you want to do? Cuttings are almost guaranteed to root if taken properly, and auxin compounds make rooting quick and painless. Always go for the cutting over the graft, just because if the graft is done improperly it will surely die (as a result of no cambial combat, dessication, etc), whereas a sickly cutting can still occasionally survive.

If the plant is large enough to simply lop it off above the medium, I would recommend that, but if you are in the mood to graft, or if the plant material and/or outcome are unimportant (which I remember you saying is not the case), try a graft.

If you were to try a graft, make sure the stem is thick enough to perform the technique. A whip and tongue graft would work well, and a picture-rich guide can surely be found after 5 min on google.

I stopped over and looked at the plant and it was sick, no doubt but the soft spot was below all leaves. Not only that, but it did have some small shoots coming up from the bottom about 2" long.
I clipped the shoots and stuck them in a stink cloner along with the larger original plant.

I checked on them today and they looked very lively. When I saw them last night, I had my doubts as they were pretty wilted, but today, you would think they came from a happy plant.

Thanks for your help. I did kind of want to try a graft, but I think I am sure to save them this way.
Flabs

I'm glad to hear everything is working out, haha. Grafting is fun. I've only ever done it with like tree branches though, never weed. In my opinion, probably the most fun you could have grafting with weed is throwing like 4-5 strains on one mother. If you are really itching to try it, I would do something like that when you have the resources.