It is not unheard of to graft two different fruits together, but usually
it requires the fruit to be similar - citrus can be grafted to other
citrus, stone fruits together, and apples and pears together. I have heard
of some guy in California with a tree on which he has grafted 20 odd
different fruit varieties. But, it is not the most efficient way to
produce fruit - the grafts have a high rate of failure. You would be
better off obtaining some quality dwarf cherry rootstock (like Gisela) and
grafting starts of your old cherry onto that. Fruits grown from seed
frequently do not come true to their parents.


Joe Jamies wrote:

Hi there,

I have 4 small plum trees growing at home which I planted from seed,
after a few months of stratification in the refrigerator (I moved the
seeds out of the refrigerator when I saw them starting to germinate).

The plum seeds were ALL successful, but the 50 or so cherry seeds I
also put into the refrigerator did NOT. The cherry seeds are from a
very old cherry tree I have on my property, which is the LAST cherry
tree of this type in my neighbourhood (there were many years ago). The
fruit this tree produces is great, very sweet and fleshy, but I don't
know the exact type. I would really like to produce some new cherry
trees from this old one, since this old tree is rotting and some
branches have already dried up.

I was hoping to get some small cherry rootstocks to grow from the
seeds I collected, but this did not succeed as I said. So, I am
wondering if it would be possible to graft or bud the old cherry onto
the young plum rootstocks. Is it possible to combine these types of
fruit?

If not, does anyone know how else I can try to get the cherry seeds to
germinate? Or is there a way to graft the old cherry onto itself to
repair some of the drying branches? The lower half of the branches are
pretty bad, but the upper half of the tree looks OK, but it's very
hard to get to the fruit.

Thanks in advance,
Joe