North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["tanis cuff" <tanistanis@hotmail.com>]

Anton: I have heard, second-hand but reliable, of an orchardist storing 
scionwood in plastic bags in a freezer.

Kevin: What if scion is in one bag, which is then placed into a second bag 
which also contains some moisture ?

tc


----Original Message Follows----
From: Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] Scion storage in freezer?
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 09:51:41 -0500 (GMT-05:00)

I seem to recall that Hilltop nursery used to describe in at least one of 
their catalogs back in the '80's that they stored scionwood by freezing it 
in solid blocks of ice until the rootstocks were ready.  It is not mentioned 
in the old catalog that I saved, so I may have some important detail wrong.  
If this worked, it seems like it would be ideal for keeping wood completely 
dormant until the stocks were in prime condition- perhaps especially good 
for stone fruit grafting.

Does anyone  have any experience with this kind of storage?

Anton


-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Forest <edforest55@hotmail.com>
Sent: Jan 27, 2004 8:56 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Vapor barrier of plastic bags

Plant Prop Princ and Pract states that

"Polyethylene plastic . . . allows the passage of oxygen and carbon dioxide,
which are exchaned during the respiration process of the stored woodk but
retards the passge of water vapor. Therfore, if this type of wrapping is
sealed, no moist packing material is needed; the natrual moisture in the
wood is sufficient since little wil be lost.  Polyethylene bags are useful
ofr storing small quantities of scioinwood."
This is the 1990 edition
I am not so brave as to try this since my system of wrapping them with
slightly moist newspaper sealed inside of ziplock bags, which I change every
month, has done very well for me and allowed me to store wood all winter.
The paper does get moldy after a couple months, or sooner if you don't keep
it at or around 32 degrees.
I think I will try some of this polyethylene plastic with some scionwood I
don't need, but I don't really know how to tell what type of bag this is. It
seems to me that Ziplock bags would be too impermeable to both air and
moisture but that thin bread bags would allow too much passage of moisture.
I am surprised taht someone mentioned taht the permeability of the plastic
actually increased the moisture in the bag rather than to dry it out, unless
they were storing it in other than a fridge, such as buried or in a root
cellar.
Kevin B
Kevin Bradley

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