Weaselcracker teaches us to graft cannabis

Weaselcracker;3342638 said:

~GRAFTING~

I thought I'd try and show better how I did those grafts, in case someone is bored and wants to try this weird method sometime.

You need- a sharp razor, a few pipe cleaners or whatever you like to tie plants with, and something to wrap the finished splice with- tape/string/thread/another pipe cleaner (?)

After my first attempts back a couple years ago or whenever the f it was, I realized that the biggest favour you can do yourself is to prepare things properly before you do any cutting. By which I mostly mean lining up the graft branches and getting them tied together to take any pressure off.

What you're trying to do, to start, is to take the two stems and get them close together and parallel with each other. You don't want to be doing that at the same time as you do the cuttting or it will be a nightmare. You want to do it first, and get them roughly aligned and fastened close to each other so that there isn't pressure pulling the grafts apart. Also slash off any problem foliage or branches in the area if they're in your way.

Pull the two plant's pots close to each other, and position them so that two likely branches are as close to each other as possible. Sometimes you have to put the branches through some contortions to make them lie parallel, and you might have to supercrop one or both of them to get them bent, lined up and positioned the way you want.
Stems 1/8" thick or thicker are what I've been using. Thinner is difficult. Not sure about thicker .

After I've got them in position, I tie them together with a scrap of pipe cleaner, below where I want to make the graft.

Take a sharp razor blade and cut the stems about 50-75% of the way through with a sharp razor, in opposing directions as in the pics.

If you want to get fancy you can make the cuts slightly staggered or offset, such that they will be pulling together slightly under pressure after you interlock them.
Careful doing that cut- once you get past the middle of the stem it's pretty easy to have the knife keep going right on through. I found it easier (slower and more controlled) to do it by sawing back and forth with the razor. Otherwise... danger awaits.

I've tried shaving the outsides parts of the stems in these splices - the rounded part- but I'm not sure it makes any difference. The part that will form the main graft is the where the two flat surfaces meet- not so much the other surfaces involved. That's the area where the stem tissues line up- the part the arrow travels through in the picture below.
Here is what I mean-

If you know which strain you are using as the rootstock, then it's important to make the cut so that it angles downwards toward the base of the rootstock plant. For example- in these photos the plant on the left should be the rootstock, and the one on the right will eventually be cut free -just below the graft splice.


If you do it the other way around then you're going to have a very weird looking graft (like I do on one of my plants )

I slide them into place then fasten the stems together above the splice with another scrap of pipe cleaner.

At this point you've pretty much done it.
Because you have the stems fastened together with pipe cleaners- they're taking the pressure and you have both hands free to finish up, without having to go through the highly stressful 'I need more hands' panic attack.

The first few grafts that I tried, I wrapped completely with pipe cleaners. This actually worked, but the later attempts were wrapped with some plastic ribbon- which worked better and did a much cleaner job.

I think something like thread would work ok, to finish the splice and get it pressed tightly together. Or tape. Lots of things could probably work...

Now I have some grafting tape I ordered on the internet. It's a bit like a small roll of saran wrap. So I put a couple wraps of that on.

The grafts in the plants I'm vegging now stayed wrapped for about ten days before I removed the bandaids.
When I did those grafts I put the veg lights on 24 hours while they were healing, to give them a little extra help because it was middle of the winter and very cold outside. Probably not necessary now.

A similar graft after it's grown together a bit.

That's about it. I think.

Click to expand...