I think I want to start grafting trees to increase production and produce more favorable varieties and diversity. Anyone tried grafting some of the more productive persimmons on wild stock? What about grafting pecans onto hickory root stock? I have tons of wild hickories coming on from some tsi work that opened up my forest but no pecans and I have read, I should be able to graft pecans onto hickory. And then of course I want to try grafting my own apple trees as well and plant quite a few of those on my forest edges where I have some natural openings - both for us to harvest fruit and for food plots. Also paw paws - I have tons of those growing around me but a very few ever truly fruit very much - I have read there are quite a few good fruiting varieties of paw paws. thoughts or ideas?

I can't truly speak to anything but the apples as we graft alot of them every year for our nursery business. Apples can be grafted with many different graft types and are generally pretty forgiving and easy to graft. Lots of guys graft wild growing persimmons with other varieties or just even scion wood from female trees to increase the fruit production as you have separate male and female trees. I cant speak to the other things you have mentioned.

I don't know pecan to hickory. I would think they would since both are carya and crosses are known to occur.

But it shouldn't be difficult to get pecan rootstock as seedling trees are common where ever pecan occurs. Mater of fact it's common practice to plant nuts then graft.

From what I have read on pecans they grow faster then hickory and will eventually out grow the hickory to the point of splitting or breaking off.

Grafting

The result of improper matching is uneven growth. With a pecan grafted to a hickory, the top half of the tree will grow more quickly than the rootstock, making it top heavy and prone to splitting when branches become laden with nuts and leaves. The smaller and weaker bottom makes it more likely to topple in undesirable weather conditions. Finally, the fast growing pecan will require more nutrients than the slow growing roots of the hickory will be able to provide. The tree is likely to live only a portion of its life expectancy.

I've never done pecan to hickory, but I would think it would work as Warrior said.

Me and a friend of mine have been grafting oaks for about 20 years and it is working. Lots of failed attempts in the beginning, but it is a trial and error thing.

We wanted more diversity in our bottomlands so we started grafting both Q. alba and Q. michauxii on to our bur oaks. The bur oaks are more drought tolerant and can handle our climate, but the acorns off the eastern oaks is what we wanted.

We no longer graft on the outermost branches; too many strong winds in the spring break them off. Instead, we find a good 2-3" tree and take the canopy off of it and graft onto that. Seems to work much better. Pretty cool, we got bur oaks here that now produce swamp chestnut and white oak acorns; as well as bur acorns.

They definitely do grow faster. I'm forever cutting back seedlings around the yard.