Monday 11 May 2009

Olive Grafting




Olive grafting

This is what I have been doing recently. We do this grafting with olive trees every April/May.

We go to a wild olive tree that does not make fruit and we graft onto it a tamed one. This allows us to make use of the strength of the wild olive root stock while choosing the type of olive we want.

The tools used are shown above.

A cut is made in the bark of the wild tree and into that slot we insert a sprig of the type of olive we want to grow, as is shown in the example above, prepared and photographed in the Alfa Kafenion. Then we wrap the graft in string very tight and we seal it with black earth - mavropiles. This particular soil is like cement, it seals almost anything and we used to make rooftops from it in the old days - water can not get through which is why we use it to graft. By keeping out the air and the water the tree survives. This is called kentrisma and we do it with all trees.