Wood Filler?

[jimlau]

To reduce the diameter of the hole being used for thread grafting, other than toothpicks, is no-shrink wood filler ok?

Thanks.

 

[Dav4]

To reduce the diameter of the hole being used for thread grafting, other than toothpicks, is no-shrink wood filler ok?

Thanks.

Sounds messy... and how big a hole did you drill? I've always used a small piece of wood from a chop stick or something similar.

 

[caffeinated]

The nice thing about the toothpick is that it's tapered. Once the graft is through the hole, you can push the toothpick in until everything is wedged tight and nothing will move as it grows and fuses to the bigger tree. Harder to pull that off with the wood filler. You're not really trying to reduce the diameter of the hole. More trying to just pin the branch in place and keep it immobile.

 

[Shibui]

Provided one side is still able to make good cambium contact it might be OK. It's not as if toothpicks or small pieces of wood are hard to find or super expensive though so why would you want to change something that works?

 

[penumbra]

Wood filler sounds risky to me. You don't want it to interfere with contact between the intended twig and the trunk. I have only done this a few times and my fit was snug. I just put a little pruning sealer over graft. The sealer fell off as stem expanded.