North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>]

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:7PsT34NIBdUJ:forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg091140228904.html+parafilm+grafting+faq&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

I ran a cross an interesting discussion that I found through Google.  The original messages at the Gardenweb forum don’t seem to be available, but the link above will take you to the Google archive, or you can google it yourself using the words “Grafting Chillies”.

 

The discussion was about grafting chili pepper plants, which I had never heard about.  I guess you can call chili peppers a kind of  fruit.  One person from Australia said an eggplant scion (normally an annual) grafted onto a wild bush tomato (a perennial) turned the grafted combination into a perennial eggplant bush.  Another person went on to say that they are able to graft pepper plants with different species for root and scion when they are just seedlings.  This guy is a self-described “knife-knut”.  He makes his own grafting blades out of glass flakes, not steel, because “a metal blade edge is 5 microns where glass can be one micron. I do not know if it is true but I am happy with the glass blades when making grafts on small seedlings.”.  Sounds like fun, but beyond my skill level.  I’m still trying to get most of my apple grafts to take.

 

-Mark Lee, Seattle