Avocados, once sprouted and rooted, grow very quickly. However, they have the habit of growing mainly tall and rarely branching. With the help of grafting, you can force your plant to branch out further, and this measure has another plus point.
What is refinement and why is it done?
Annual pruning can often force avocados to branch out and become bushier. However, this does not always work, because sometimes only a side shoot forms after the capping, which then develops into the actual main shoot - and the plant only grows upwards again. By refining, i. H. grafting a foreign avocado sprig onto the actual trunk, you kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, your tree will probably branch out and, on the other hand, this measure would theoretically make it possible to fertilize the tree even without a second tree, provided that there is a tree on the grafted one Branch forming opposite-sex flowers.
You need this for refining your avocado
- a "stock" (i.e. an existing avocado tree that is at least a year old)
- a "scion" (i.e. an avocado sprig from a plant unrelated to the "rootstock")
- a sharp knife (preferably sterile, ergo cleaned and boiled)
- bast
- tree wax
- a lot of finesse
How to refine your avocado
“Pad” and “raisin” should be at least as thick as a pencil. Make an oblique cut in the trunk of the "pad", this should be about four to six centimeters deep. You do the same with the "noble rice". Now join the two parts together and wrap the interface tightly with raffia. Then seal the whole thing with tree wax (€12.96) and give your avocado the rest it needs now.
tips and tricks
The best time for grafting is in spring, just before hibernation is over and the plants sprout again. Then the probability is very high that the avocado will accept the new shoot and it will grow.