North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hi Rodney,

I wrote you privately, but I wanted to say this publicly.

Grafting is easy.  Grafting is simple.  Man has done it for thousands of 
years with the simplest of
tools.  Yes, it can sound daunting and complicated, but it isn't.

Start simple and work your way up.  Start with inexpensive (free) rootsock 
and scion.  Use a sharp
pocket knife.  Collect long fat rubber bands.  Get a couple of trees under 
you belt and you will
wonder why you hesitated.

If I wrote a few thousand words telling you how to do the "dog paddle", I am 
sure you would be
confused in minutes, and swear off swimming for life.  But if I got you in a 
pond for 5 minutes you
would be beating me in a race across the pond.

Dive into grafting.  Use what you have around or in the junk drawer.  Hey, 
what you have in your
junk drawer would be "magic" to those ancient gardeners, and they could graft.

You can do it.  Honest.

Later,
Tom

Rodney Eveland wrote:

> http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/hort400/apple2.html
>
> This is a fairly long tutorial: Here is an excerpt from the first page:
>
> Most modern apple production is from clonally propagated fruiting
> varieties such as MacIntosh, Red Delicious,
> Crispin, etc. grafted (or budded) onto clonal rootstocks selected for
> their ability to affect the ultimate size of the tree, disease
> resistance, etc. Dwarfing and semi dwarfing rootstock are most commonly
> used since they result in smaller, more easily
> managed trees with higher overall (per acre) yield than the same
> fruiting varieties on their own roots. One disadvantage of
> dwarfing rootstocks is that their root system at maturity is smaller,
> shallower, and thus less well anchored than vigorous
> rootstocks, resulting in a tendency for the tree to lodge (fall over)
> especially under a heavy load of apples. An alternative,
> though less common, method of achieving size control is double working,
> wherein a three part tree is constructed consisting of
> a fruiting scion, a size controlling interstock (interstem), and a
> vigorous rootstock, which produces a larger and better anchored
> root system than a dwarfing rootstock.
>
> Steve Burt's article in the summer Pomona prompted me to search for this
> information, although no one has clearly stated just exactly what
> diseases the rootstock or interstem can save the scion from. The
> tutorial is full of thumbnails which one can click on to see a larger
> picture. Makes me wish I was already proficient at grafting..........
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--
Thomas Olenio
Ontario, Canada
Hardiness Zone 5b