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Home Q & A Board Biology-Related Homework Help Zoology and Botany (Moderator: ehd123)
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dasbigwilli dasbigwilli
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10 years ago
Whats the idea? I saw something where they take two different plants with thick woody stems and splice them together with tape. How does this work? Dont the plants reject each others components? Whats the limit with this? Could I splice cactii onto tree trunks? Or willows onto giant redwoods? What gives?
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10 years ago
You mean the skill of "grafting".  This trick is used to joint to related plants.  Its much like organ transplant, and like in people it only works with closely related things.  You can graft one color rose onto another and have a bush with 2 colors of flowers. However you cant graft a cactus onto a willow, this wont work.  Basically, its limited to grafts among the same species or at best genera of plant, there are exceptions but its simple to think of it this way.  

Why would you do this?  Well there is quite a lot of variation between individual plants even in the same species.  They Can have different flowers, disease resistances, growth habits and fruit.  These variations may make it desirable to have one part of one plant on another.  Think the top shoot of a tomato on the roots of a potato (by the way this can be grafted).

How it works?  You use a clean knife ( so the cuts don't get full germs and rot) and make cuts on the main plant (stock) and the one to be grafted (scion) that match. You then line up the bark growing surfaces (cambium) and Tie them together with a rubbery tie (prevents water loss form the cut) to hold it together.  Tape is not really that good, you can get something better at a garden center called grafting rubbers (like soft wide rubber bands cut in strips).  The scion also has to be quite small (a bud or leaf free twig) or great care must be taken to reduce water loss ( it has no roots after all until the cut heals together).  The cut hopefully will heal up as new bark is made down properly connecting stock and scion.  The union will have a scar, otherwise in time (perhaps a year) it will be a good as before.
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irinairina
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10 years ago
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