DIY tree grafting knife. Budding and grafting knives - why they are needed and how to sharpen them Types of grafting knives

Spring budding of fruit trees is an effective grafting method

Advantages of fruit tree budding

Grafting of garden trees - apple or pear trees - is a widespread procedure. It is carried out in order to improve the fruiting of old trees, the yield of which has fallen, and the quality of the fruit wants to be better, or wild trees that bear little fruit. In addition, there are many different varieties, and with the help of grafting, new, higher-yielding varieties that are disease-resistant or more winter-hardy can be cultivated.

You can buy it or prepare it yourself.
For better wound healing, additional cleaning of the cut with a garden knife is necessary, and annual shoots are cut immediately with a garden knife.

Grafting knife - with an elongated blade and a straight blade, convenient for making long and even cuts necessary when grafting cuttings. The blades of grafting knives usually have the shape of a right triangle in diameter. Sharpening on one side only.

Using the tip of the instrument, carefully lift the corner of the bark at the site of the incision, insert the bud and press, as if pushing it inside. When the shield has taken the required position, we squeeze the grafting site with our fingers and tie it with the selected material. The main thing is that the bud and petiole remain open. This method of spring grafting of fruit trees is called T-shaped budding. First of all, you need to prepare the grafting tool itself, which you will use to carry out all the grafting work. So, it doesn’t matter whether you use a budding or copulating knife - the main thing is that it is sharp and made of high-quality steel. If you bought a new tool, it is still worth sharpening it further, because the grafting knife should be as sharp as a razor. If you do not have the opportunity to purchase such a knife, a regular office knife with replaceable blades will do. True, here you should choose models where the blade is attached as sharply as possible so that it does not fly off during work and cause injury to the gardener. Budding of fruit trees with buds

We are preparing to carry out work - what needs to be done?

grafting knives

The main advantage of any knife is a good blade. No exception to this rule and

The grafting pruner is a multifunctional garden tool. They can not only vaccinate, but also trim branches and branches, and perform a number of other operations. It is made of reinforced plastic and alloy steel. It is supplied with knives of various types and purposes, both for cutting branches and for grafting cuttings. This is a durable and reliable tool. When using grafting pruners, it is necessary to use a rootstock with the same diameter as the scion. Cuttings are used with smooth bark. To graft a scion, you need to perform only 4 operations. The first is to make a cut on the rootstock.

Tool for grafting fruit trees

There are many ways to graft fruit trees. Of course, it is not possible to tell about everyone, but we will tell you about the two simplest and most accessible methods.

So if you graft a cultivated variety onto a wild plant, it will be more frost-resistant and will also bear fruit more efficiently. First of all, I would like to talk about the definitions and features when carrying out tree grafting operations.

Cook with vegetable oil. Melt the paraffin (6 parts), add crushed rosin (3 parts), bring the mixture to a boil and add vegetable or mineral oil (2 parts). Boil for 10 minutes

See why graft trees?
There are combined knives with budding and grafting blades on one handle.
There is another method called butt budding. If you choose this method, then at the site of the future grafting we make the first incision, the second - a little higher, literally after 2-3 cm. After this, carefully remove the strip of bark between the incisions. Instead of the cut out area, insert an “eye” and tie this place.
You also need to choose the material for the strapping. The cheapest option is tapes made of polyethylene film up to about 1 cm wide and about 30 cm long. It is best to cut them the day before work, using thick greenhouse film. If you don’t have one at hand, you can cut ribbons from ordinary “store-bought” bags, but here you need to make them about 3 cm wide - when tying the ribbons, we fold them in half.

We budding fruit trees in the spring

garden knives

Finishing budding work in the spring

The second step is to make a reverse cut on the scion.

The first step in this grafting method is to trim off most of the main branches of the tree. At the same time, 2-3 main branches are left, which will act as a “pump” of moisture for the tree. Branches are pruned at a distance of 70-100 cm from the tree trunk. The cut site is treated with a grafting or garden knife.

Rootstock

After cooling, knead the mixture and place it in a jar with a lid.

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1. Grafting knife

This is an elastic material that allows you to tightly pull the rootstock and scion together. There are many options - from special tape for vaccinations to stationery erasers.

The scion cuttings are cut with pruning shears. Then, if necessary, they are cleaned (for example, from needles, if we are talking about conifers) with any sharp knife, so as not to dull or stain the grafting knife with sticky resin.

Two weeks after the work, you need to check whether the buds have taken root on the new trees.

Don't forget to prepare tools such as:

2. Secateurs, as well as an additional knife

The second advantage is that even careless budding will not lead to injury to the rootstock. And all thanks to the fact that during the work the rootstock is not cut off, but even if a small wound remains, it will heal very quickly.

The budding knife is equipped with a special protrusion, with the help of which the bark of the rootstock is separated and the buds are inserted during budding. His blade has a convex blade and a pointed tip. The grafting knife has an elongated blade and a straight blade, convenient for making long and even cuts necessary when grafting cuttings. They release and

. Intended for fine pruning (instead of pruning shears), budding, grafting, cleaning wounds and many other gardening tasks, they, like surgical instruments, must be sharp and sterile.

The third step is to combine the rootstock and scion.

Then 5-6 cm long cuts are made on the bark. The bark should be cut down to the wood.

- this is the part of the tree that provides nutrition, absorbs nutrients from the soil and transfers them to the branches above, including the twisted ones.

Var with drying oil. Melt 1 kg of crushed rosin, mix with 230 ml of natural drying oil, pour this mass into 5 kg of molten paraffin.

Gardeners often use strips of plastic bags or elastic, sun-degradable strips of latex surgical gloves. Electrical tape is suitable, but not black, since black easily heats up in the sun during the day and stretches, and cools and contracts at night. Due to temperature changes, black electrical tape often spontaneously unwinds on the graft.

3. Material for strapping

A dull pruner does not cut well and crushes branches at the cut site. It is disassembled for sharpening. Only the outer part of the cutting branch from the chamfer side is sharpened.

So, for established “eyes,” the petiole should fall off with slight pressure, but the petiole of a bud that has not taken root dries out and does not fall off. If the bud is growing normally, then the strap needs to be loosened a little.

4. Labels

material for labels;

5. Napkins and a bottle of alcohol or vodka

Many gardening experts claim that grafting using the budding method in the spring is much better than grafting with cuttings.

6. First aid kit

combination knives

7. Garden var

The best material for blades is carbon steel. And before each operation, the blade is disinfected with a strong solution of potassium permanganate, copper sulfate, treated with alcohol or fire.

And, the fourth step - we wrap the grafting site with braid or soft twine, and treat it with garden varnish. This completes the grafting process. You can learn how to prepare garden varnish yourself from the article “How to prepare garden varnish at home or how to cover cuts on a tree”

Scion

Store the resulting broth in a warm place.

To avoid getting confused about varieties, sign the grafted plants without waiting for them to grow together. Note the type of rootstock, scion variety, grafting date.

The sharpening angle of the blade is relatively large. You cannot grind down the inner surface of the cutting branch: as a result of such sharpening, the pruner becomes unusable.

If you have double-grafted fruit trees such as cherries, then you only need to leave the most developed shoot, and remove the second one. If you live in a region with low temperatures, be sure to insulate the side parts of the grafts using willow bark or spruce branches for lining.

A clean cloth for wiping the rootstock;

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How to graft a fruit tree - apple, pear, plum

This is due to the fact that this work is characterized by better survival of the scion on the rootstock, and the growing stems do not break so often.

Time to graft trees

Var with wax and propolis. Melt wax (3 parts) and propolis (2 parts) over low heat, add crushed rosin (6 parts) and boil. After cooling, add turpentine (1 part) and stir well.

Preparation and preservation of cuttings for grafting

Some plants secrete a resin that sticks to the knife, it quickly becomes dirty and stops sliding on the wood. In such cases, the knife should be wiped with alcohol or vodka.

Grafting in one day (without preparing cuttings for grafting)

Sharpen the pruning shears, like knives, with a block until burrs appear. To remove burrs, the pruning shears are guided with a fine whetstone on both sides.

Methods of grafting fruit trees (apple, pear, plum, quince, etc.)

Did you carry out work in the spring? This means that after a few months the binding needs to be removed, the grafted stem should be cut off near the “eye”, and the vertical shoots should be removed, leaving a small stump - we tie a young shoot from the bud to it to give it vertical growth. Next season, we cut the stump into a ring and coat it with garden varnish.

Vaccination for bark

garden var;

A couple of days before budding, you need to do some preparatory work. If the weather is warm, then the grafted trees need to be watered, which will lead to increased sap flow, in addition, in this case the bark will better lag behind the tree, which will greatly facilitate the work. In places of budding on the plant, you need to remove interfering side stems and leaves, if any.

Fruit trees on a personal plot can provide a harvest not only for the owners, but also income from fruiting, and for high-quality care of your garden you will definitely need a garden knife for grafting. Whether you buy it in a store or maybe make it yourself is a matter, as they say, of the owner, but the shape and dimensions of such a tool in any case will be of great importance for a particular operation.

We will now look at several options for the tool, how to use it, and watch a useful video in this article.

Using a garden edger

Varieties

Among all the cutting tools for the garden, there are various knives, not to mention many other specialized tools and devices for cultivating the soil and caring for plants. In the top image you see a whole set of knives and their sharpening,
where in sector “a”:

1, 2) for budding trees and seedlings;
3, 4) type of chisel for budding;
5) for vaccinations or copulation;
6) combination (universal) knife;
7, 8) for garden work.

Sharpening in sector “b”:

for garden;
for vaccinations;
the blade is not sharpened;
the blade is sharpened;
incorrect sharpening.

The sharpening process that garden knives undergo for grafting (budding, copulating) is carried out along chamfers, that is, the blade is lowered with a chamfer onto corundum, a block or sandpaper and moves forward at an angle with translational movements. Pressure must be applied towards the blade. After this, the blade is turned over to the other side and pulled from the tip to the thick part, that is, in this case, editing is done (burrs are removed) and this side is not sharpened.
In situations where the chamfers have a complex profile, the instructions recommend using convex bars or their width should not exceed 10 mm - this allows the load to be evenly distributed. The principle of sharpening remains the same - the blade is moved forward with a slight pressure on the tip and the reverse side is sharpened in the same way if there is a chamfer there, and if there is none, then only editing is done (from the tip to the back side).
Budding knives are sharpened in a circular motion on a fine-grained tool., but its editing is carried out using micro-corundum whetstone or sandpaper and a leather belt (final stage). It is noteworthy that the grafting knife should correspond to a razor in terms of sharpness. You can check this using a sheet of paper (newspaper) by cutting it while it is hanging.

Note. If you want to make a garden grafting knife with your own hands, you can use an old knife with a wide blade (preferably made of carbon steel).
You can also use a blade from a wood hacksaw to make a blade - most often the metal is good.

Graft

Note. It is necessary to distinguish between two grafting methods: copulation and budding.
The first option involves joining the rootstock with the scion along the same cut, that is, the cutting with the plant has the same thickness.
The second option involves grafting one or two buds, which are inserted into a split made in the rootstock.

Let's look at grafting an apricot onto a plum and do it using the copulation method. To do this, we found a young plum shoot, which can very often be found in the garden where this plant is, and cut off a branch of the same thickness from the apricot, that is, the root system of the plum will grow fragrant, delicious apricot fruits.

It is important to choose the time for such an action, and the most appropriate moment comes when the buds begin to “move”, that is, they begin to swell.

We cut off the shoot closer to the ground, leaving only 15-20 cm of the trunk on the surface, since the root itself is important to us here, and the trunk serves as an appendage for the connection. We also shorten the apricot branch to 15-220 cm, and the upper cut should be strictly horizontal, without creases.

Now we need to use a garden knife to make a double-sided oblique cut about 5 cm long on the apricot branch, which will come to naught. In this case, at the beginning of the cone you need to make a shoulder on each side, which will protrude to the thickness of the bark. The cut itself must be smooth - this is only possible if the final stroke is made with one movement of the blade, without changes.

On the plum trunk, which is our rootstock, we make a split with a sharp garden knife and use the same principle that we used to make a cone on the scion. This means that you need to remove a certain amount of wood from each split part of the trunk (from the inside), and you need to do this at an angle so that the scion cone adheres tightly to it.

The walls in the cleft should also be smooth (the final touch is done with one movement of the knife) - this can be seen in the photo above.

After you insert the scion into the rootstock, you need to check that the planes fit well together and the shoulders of the cone exactly fit the horizontal cut of the plum - if you avoid gaps, the likelihood of adaptation will increase significantly. Be careful not to strip the bark from any branches - this will help preserve the natural conditions.

The junction is tightly wrapped with insulating vinyl or rag tape so that there are no live cuts anywhere.

When everything is done, you will, of course, be interested in the result of your actions, that is, whether the apricot graft has taken root on the plum. Pay attention to the apricot twig after about one and a half to two weeks - if the bud continues to “move” - swell and burst, then the experiment was a success, and in two to three years you will be able to taste the first fruits.

Preface

A garden knife is one of the first and oldest garden tools. Once upon a time, ordinary knives were used as such, suitable in size and shape of the blade, and only for their intended purpose - for cutting flowers, pruning trees and pruning bushes. Today he has such assistants as pruners, scissors and saws, and the garden knife itself has become a specialized tool and comes in several types.

Modern garden knives should not be used for “rough” work: pruning branches, cutting cuttings, removing branches, trimming hedges from bushes. And the point here is not at all that this tool has become less reliable than it once was.

On the contrary, modern garden knives are stronger and more durable than ever, thanks also to the latest developments in metallurgy and mechanical engineering. Their blades and other metal parts are made only from alloy steel, with which other materials of construction of this tool used for handle linings and other parts are comparable in reliability and service life. It’s just that these knives are now designed for more delicate types of work, and all the above garden operations are assigned to a variety of equipment: pruners, special saws, scissors. This entire tool does its job much better than garden knives could.

Modern garden knives

The work left to the knife can be judged by the names of its types. There are 2 main types:

trimming;
vaccination

The first type of tool, as before, can be used to trim live or damaged but not dried areas of wood and thin branches of ornamental and fruit bushes and trees. They also clean wounds and cuts left after sawing off thick branches, and remove unnecessary young shoots. In addition, a pruning knife is used for cutting a thorn, preparing cuttings for grafting, carefully cutting the bark before grafting, and cutting flowers from a flower bed.

The grafting instrument, in turn, is divided into 3 more types:

budding;
copulating;
combined.

Combined grafting instrument

The first is grafting of ornamental and fruit plants with an eye, that is, a single bud taken from a cutting of another cultivated variety and in which a thin layer of wood of the latter is left. It is used for basic budding operations: cutting the scute, forming a T-shaped cut on the rootstock and then spreading the bark on it.

When mentioning the second type of tool, as a rule, they do not say that it is a copulating knife, but simply call it a grafting knife. They undergo copulation - they are grafted with a cutting. The grafting tool is used to perform almost all the necessary copulation operations, namely: cutting the cutting into a “stem”, forming a wedge-shaped or oblique cut, splitting the rootstock or cutting its bark. With a combination knife you can perform two types of vaccinations mentioned above.

The pruning tool has a curved sickle-shaped blade, approximately the same length as the handle or shorter than it. Its blade is always located on the concave part and is flat on one side and in the form of a wedge on the other, with a chamfer on the cutting edge. Wedge angle 8–12°. Pruning tools come in different lengths, with a fixed blade and a folding one. For the latter, the designation was adopted in the Soviet Union Michurin knife. Our industry produced 4 types of this folding tool:

Garden knife No. 1 – when folded (closed), its length is 128 mm; in one stroke, the blade cuts a branch up to 20 mm thick.
No. 2 – length 118 mm, maximum diameter of branches cut at once – 15 mm.
No. 3 – 110 mm, the diameter of branches cut in one step is up to 10 mm.
No. 4 – 110 mm, the diameter of branches cut the first time is up to 7 mm.

Michurin garden knife

Currently, domestic manufacturers produce this tool mainly in 2 types: medium and small. First, stamps Michurinsky-2 (M-2) facilitates the processing of cuts, especially large diameters, and at the same time helps prevent injury to plants. It is convenient for them to trim the root system and crown branches when planting seedlings, as well as cut out thorns from annuals. At the knife M-3, small garden blade, a blade with a narrow nose that has a slight curvature, which makes the tool very convenient when cutting above the bud, stripping the bark on medium and thick sections, as well as cutting out branches and thorns in the forks of branches.

The grafting tool is also available with a fixed blade and a folding one. The budding blade has a shape approximately the same as that of conventional knives. It is almost straight, with a pointed tip and a curve in front of it. The cross-section of the blade has the shape of an isosceles triangle - suitable for double-sided sharpening. The angle of convergence of the blade - between the cheeks of the blade at the tip - should be 7-10 degrees.

Folding budding knives

Folding budding knives may have an elastic retractable knuckle (knuckle) at the end of the handle. After the incision, they use it to carefully push the bark apart to make it easier to insert the bud. For a non-folding instrument, the bone is located on the blade and is part of it. It is located near the tip on the side of the butt - the edge opposite the blade. It is a protrusion on which the blade becomes thinner towards the butt, but remains dull along the edge of the latter. A folding knife should have the same knuckle if it does not have an elastic one.

A copulating knife has a straight blade with the same or slightly beveled tip. Its shape in the first case is rectangular, and in the second – trapezoidal. The copulating tool also has a bone for pushing apart the incised bark. It is located on the blade and has the same shape as that of budding knives. Only it is located at the very tip of the blade at the butt, and its thin outer edge can be a continuation of the latter. The blade usually has a cross-sectional shape of a right-angled triangle (like a pruning knife), and can be sharpened on one side. Its convergence angle is 10–12 o.

Combination knives are only folding. They have 2 blades: 1 – budding, and the other – copulating.

Any tool must be practical, reliable and “fit in the hand.” Nowadays, specialized stores offer a wide range of knives of various shapes and sizes from well-known manufacturers, made from quality materials. It is clear that when selecting a tool, you must first decide on its type so that it matches the nature of the intended work in the garden.

Selection of tools for gardening

Then you should ask the sales consultant for different knives of the desired type and hold each one in your hands. You need to check whether they are comfortable and how well they “fit in your hands.” If you purchase a folding tool, you need to open and close it. How's it going? Isn't it tight? Is the blade securely locked when open? When choosing a tool, you should measure the thickness of the blade. Optimal for grafting knives is approximately 1.5 mm, for trimming knives – 1.5–2 mm.

Optimal blade thickness

Even when buying a branded knife, you should check whether it is sharpened correctly and check its sharpness. If the sharpening is incorrect - one-sided instead of two-sided or vice versa, you will have to correct this defect yourself. The blade of the blade should be as sharp as possible and not have any jagged edges. The greatest sharpness is required for copulating and budding knives so that their blades do not tear, but carefully cut all plant tissues: phloem, cambium, and wood. Its degree is determined by the following methods:

Holding a sheet of writing (thin) paper suspended, they try to cut it. A well-sharpened blade cuts, but a dull blade crumples. If even after 8–10 attempts the paper does not tear, but rather is cut, then this indicates the high quality of the tool.
The blade is placed vertically with the blade up towards the sun. If shiny spots are visible on the edge of the blade, the knife is dull.
The back of the left hand is moistened with water above the hand and tried to shave off the hair. A sharp blade cuts them off.

Before any type of work with plants and each grafting operation, the blade should be thoroughly disinfected. To do this, you can use alcohol, a solution of potassium permanganate or copper sulfate. A simple and quick way is to hold the blade in a flame of fire.

Potassium permanganate disinfectant solution

The tool should be used slowly. A knife is a sharp tool and is a source of increased injury risk. You need to choose comfortable and safe poses and angles. When working at height, you should use a stable ladder, preferably a special one. If a table is installed instead, it must be done securely so that it does not swing or wobble. It should also be taken into account that in some places the soil may be loose.

You should only work with a well-sharpened tool. This is not only the basis for the high-quality performance of all operations and the elimination of cases of damage to plants when the knife tears their tissue, but also one of the components of safe work.

Well sharpened garden pruner

The knife should be used only for its intended purpose; you should not use it to cut anything. After finishing the work, wipe the tool dry with a rag. It should always be kept perfectly clean. The sharpness of the blade must be monitored and, if necessary, the blade must be sharpened in a timely manner. This must be done correctly, maintaining the factory chamfer angle. The axles in the hinges of a folding tool are lubricated with oil, preferably engine oil. In late autumn, when collecting all the garden tools for the winter, the knives are thoroughly lubricated with grease and then placed for storage in a room where there is normal humidity and, preferably, the temperature does not fall below 0 o C.

Garden tools are sharpened on sharpening stones: whetstones and whetstones. The former have large grains of abrasive material, while the latter have small grains. A whetstone is used to roughly sharpen the blade, and a whetstone is used to fine-tune it. To sharpen a pruning knife, you need semicircular stones (bars and whetstones), preferably no more than 30 mm wide, since it has a curved blade. As a last resort, you can use ordinary stones, but sharpening must be done on their narrow side part.

The essence of sharpening lies in the correct setting of the chamfer (wedge angle, toe) of the blade. Its angles for the corresponding types of tools are indicated above. Knives with one-sided sharpening (chamfer), in which the second side of the blade is flat, cannot be sharpened on both surfaces of the blade.

Bulbers with one-sided sharpening

Grafting knives are placed with the entire plane of the blade on the block and the blade is moved, pressing it, along the stone with straight-line movements. The curved part of the blade (nose) is sharpened in the same way, slightly lifting the tool by the handle. Sharpen the knife until burrs appear along the entire length of the blade. Then they make adjustments with a whetstone - remove burrs. To do this, take the knife by the handle only with your fingers and move it along the stone as if turning, but without pressure.

A tool with double-sided sharpening is turned around the butt after each movement along the whetstone in order to alternate the editing of both chamfers of the blade. Knives with one-sided sharpening are turned over after several movements of the chamfer on the stone. Having turned it over, run it over the whetstone 1-2 times with the flat side of the blade, pressing it against the stone with its entire surface. Then the tool is turned back and everything is repeated. Finish editing on the flat side of the blade.

Knife blade with double-sided sharpening

When sharpening a pruning knife, hold it in your left hand, resting it on some solid base or object. The sharpening stone is taken in the right hand, pressed to the blade at the desired angle, and moved along the blade, working like a file. Using a whetstone, turning is carried out in 3 steps: first the base of the blade, then its middle, and finally the nose. After this, the blade is adjusted on a whetstone - they make movements from the base of the blade to the tip, which must be sharpened especially carefully. Each time, moving the whetstone along the chamfer, on the last 2 cm of the blade, the smoothness of its movement is increased and the pressure of the hand on the stone is reduced.

To check the sharpness of a sharpened tool, first carefully feel its blade, and then use one of the methods given above. Usually they cut paper.

Budding and grafting knives - why they are needed and how to sharpen them

For grafting plants, a budding and grafting knife are used. Let's talk today about what they are needed for, how to use them and how to sharpen them.

The budding knife has a blade with a convex blade and a pointed nose. Needs double-sided sharpening. In addition, it has a bone to separate the rootstock bark from the wood and facilitate the insertion of a bud during budding.

Another knife - a grafting knife - has an elongated blade and a straight blade; it is designed for making long and even cuts.

On the back of the blade of such a knife there is a beard (protrusion), which serves to separate the bark and push apart the edges of the cut when grafting the plant “by the bark”.

The blade of the grafting knife has the shape of an isosceles triangle in diameter. These knives are sharpened only on one side.

Garden stores sell combination knives with a grafting and budding blade on one handle.

Knives must be sharpened. Watch the video from Andrey Krot, which shows in detail exactly how to sharpen a grafting and budding knife.

The sharpness of garden knives can be checked in the following ways. Turn the blade with the blade up towards the sun. If shiny spots are visible on the blade, then the blade is dull. Take the knife in your left hand with the edge up and cut thin paper with it, a sharp blade cuts it well, a dull blade tears it.

After use, knives must be wiped and always kept clean. Use budding and grafting knives only for their intended purpose. Lubricate the hinge axes periodically with machine oil. Before winter storage, lubricate the knives with grease and store in a dry room.

About pruners

You also need pruning shears to graft plants. These are scissors with curved blades; they consist of a cutting half and a supporting half. The cutting part has a convex blade, the supporting part has a concave blade. The pruning shears are disassembled for sharpening. A poorly sharpened pruner crushes tree branches.

Only sharpen the outer part of the cutting blade from the chamfer side. You cannot grind the inside of the cutting blade; as a result of such sharpening, the pruner becomes unusable. A sharp pruner cuts paper like scissors. When working, it is important to hold the pruning shears correctly; when turned upside down, they severely crumple the branches.

Review of grafting knives Felco Victorinox, Fiskars and Tina

Well, in this video clip you can see what grafting knives are used by professional gardeners.

Nina says:
Instead of a knife, we use simple garden shears to graft plants. We are quite happy with this option. And you don’t have to overpay.

Answer
valery says:
1) grafting knife - an extension of the hand; I use a hard, non-folding knife;
2) knife steel - rapid Soviet, one sharpening is enough for 500 grafts;
3) the thickness of the grafting knife is 2.2 mm, the budding knife is 1.8 mm
4) handmade - finishing the blade tip with an angle of 20-25 * surpasses all store-bought rubbish;
5) 20 years experience

Answer
- Natalia says:
  Valery, thank you very much for your additions! Your experience, I am sure, will be useful to all gardeners, regardless of the degree of involvement.
  
  Answer

Here we will find out what a grafting garden knife is. The correct sharpening of garden knives for grafting and budding is carried out along the chamfers, when the blade is placed with a chamfer on sandpaper, a block or corundum and it is moved forward at an angle with translational movements with obligatory pressure towards the blade. Then the blade is turned to the other side and pulled from the tip to the thick part, which results in editing - removing burrs, without sharpening this second side. If the chamfer has a complex profile, then it is better to use convex bars, or no more than 10 cm wide, this is better for uniform loading. The sharpening style remains the same, moving the blade forward with pressure on the blade on one side, and the same on the back, if there is a chamfer, if not, then we just straighten it from the tip to the back side.

But we sharpen the budding knives in a circular motion on a fine-grained whetstone, and trim them on a micro-corundum whetstone or sandpaper, the final stage is on a leather belt. Note that the sharpness of the grafting knife is equal to the sharpness of a razor. Be sure to check this on the hanging newspaper. You can also make a garden knife yourself from an old knife with a wide blade, always made of carbon steel. Or make it from a hacksaw blade. As a rule, they are made of high quality steel.

Grafting process

There are two types of grafting: budding and copulation.

Budding- when one or two buds are grafted by inserting a rootstock into the split.

Copulation- join the scion with the rootstock along the same cut, it turns out that the cutting and the plant have the same thickness.

Let's take as an example the grafting of an apricot to a plum using the copulation method. We will graft an apricot twig of the same thickness onto the young plum shoot we found, and the root system of the plum will feed the branch with apricots too! The most suitable time for the process is the beginning of swelling of the buds.

We cut off the plum shoot near the ground, leaving 15 - 20 cm, we need the root first of all, a piece of the trunk will serve as a connection. We also make the apricot branch about 15 - 20 cm long and the cut from the top should be exactly horizontal and even, without any creases.

Now on the apricot branch we make oblique cuts about 5 cm long on both sides. It is better to leave hangers as thick as bark on both sides of the cut in the upper part. For the sake of smoothness, we try to make cuts in one movement.

We make a split on the remainder of the plum trunk using the same method as on the apricot scion, when you need to select a certain amount of wood from the inside for the harvested scion. And we also make the walls of the dent smooth, in one movement.

We act carefully, without damaging the bark of the branches, check the tightness of fit of one to the other, the tighter the contact, the faster the grafting process will go.

We wrap the joining area tightly with rag or vinyl tape so that the cuts are accurately covered.

You will be able to check the results of your work in a week and a half; if you notice that the buds on the apricot branch are swelling and bursting, then in a couple or three years you will be able to eat apricots.

You can use one to two-year-old tops for grafting, and not necessarily a root shoot. Everything is the same, only we cut the top even shorter, leaving only 5 - 10 cm from the trunk.

For the fastest rooting of the scion, it is better to make splits along the growth line of the trunk.

Let's sum it up

If you decide to buy a garden knife for grafting, then you will do the right thing. After all, high-quality garden tools are a great help in gardening work. But don’t forget that in skillful hands a stick can shoot. So, carefully study the processes in the video lessons, so as not to go wrong even with an expensive branded tool.