I should have done this sooner, its been in my GLog... but not everyone goes to that part of the site, so I digress.
For my first attempt, I tried a apical wedge graft...
I cut the top off a pepper, and the roots off a scion at the cotyledon stage, and shaved the sides so that over the course of an inch the scion was bare and angled off to a point. On the host, I topped it as mentioned, and then cut a wedge into it just barely large enough to accommodate the scion. I stuck scion into host, and used packaging tape sticky side out. After 24 hours, the scion had wilted. Within 48 it had failed. So I tried again - same method, only using more tape this time. It looked great for a few days, but started to turn. I discovered that if I placed a single drop of water on the scion, and let it run down into the tape, it would perk the scion up a bit... After two days and two very long nights, it became apparent that it was going to fail, so I gave up on the frequent moistening, and within an additional 48 hours the second attempt had failed. So I decided to try a third time - an approach graft.
I selected a host, and a scion of the ages I wanted, and measured so I would know where the cuts/scrapes would need to be. I cut a 1/4inch square section of the outer later off the host, and then scraped the scion in a similar way. I held the two pieces together, and then used my sticky side out tape method. The scion was looking great, after two weeks I put it out in the sun. But the neighbors dog pulled the container off the work bench, and while he didn't eat it, he did mess up the graft... So I took the same host (poor thing, this is his 4th grafting attempt). And made a half inch wide, by 1/2 inch tall flap between the second and third nodes. I took a new scion (scotch bonnet once again, but a different one) and scraped the skin off 80% of the way around the stem, placed the stem inside of the flap on the host, and used my backwards tape method to hold everything together. It has now been 6 days, ,and thus far everything has been looking good... The host has secondary growth, and is trying to bud, while the scion is producing its first set of true leaves.
http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/28709-jsschrstrcks-grow-log-increasingly-picture-heavy/ is my Glog for those of you that are interested.
things were going swimingly until my scion was attacked by some unknown critter...
As you can see just above the tape are two cotyledons, one of which you can see daylight through where something ate most of the way through the stem that holds that particular cotyledon.
My knee jerk reaction is to find some nasty chemical and drown the soil in it to kill whatever is responsible... But I think I'll try pulling the plant(s) out, dumping the soil in the canal, rinsing the dirt from the roots, and re-potting in fresh potting soil...
thanks though.
