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  • From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] treatment of scions
  • Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:17:31 -0500

John, I have had scions stored in bags without a paper towel dry out in a
refrigerator, to the point that the wood was not graftable. Perhaps you are
not using a standard kitchen refrigerator to store your wood, they are very
effective at drying things out (its part of the auto-defrost "feature"). If
you are using a standard fridge maybe your triple bagging is the secret.

If wood ever does start to look wizened, its not the end of the world if you
catch it in time, just cut a bit off the ends and stick them in half an inch
of water and they will fatten up again.

Scott

On Feb 25, 2011, at 10:54 AM, John Bunker wrote:

> I know that many people use damp paper towels, wax etc. I have never
> found these measures to be necessary. We store large amounts of scionwood
> in plastic bags with no moisture at all and no wax. We generally use large
> thick black garbage bags. It might be that the accumulated moisture from
> all the wood keep them from drying out. We store the bags at 35 - 40
> degrees. I also store a few sticks of this and that from time to time and
> in small plastic bags with no wax or moisture. Again with no ill effects.
> When we store wood in the refrigerator or root cellar, we triple bag it.
> We have never had mold problems.
>
> Snowing up here again today. Three feet on the ground.
>
> John Bunker
> Fedco
> trees@fedcoseeds.com
> www.fedcoseeds.com
> PO Box 520
> Waterville ME 04903
> 207-873-7333
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 25, 2011, at 7:40 AM, david.maxwell@dal.ca wrote:
>
>> I suspect that there is more belief than science involved, and that I may
>> trigger strongly held
>> opinions, but I would like to seek the collective wisdom on the best way
>> to store scion wood.
>> I have always put a little bit of moist paper towel over the cut ends, put
>> them in a Baggie, and
>> stored them in the fridge until spring. I have recently had strong
>> objections that this will result
>> in the scions becoming mouldy because of the humidity, (and indeed they do
>> sometimes
>> develop a surface growth of a white mould, but this does not seem to
>> affect the takes, or do
>> the scions the slightest harm). It was suggested that the better way is
>> to dip the ends in
>> some sort of wax to "seal" them, and then store them dry. Will they dry
>> out like this, and will
>> the drying not kill the scions just as surely? Any thoughts or advice?
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