North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[John Smith <friendly27sw@yahoo.com>]

This year I moved several hundred miles and brought
along several pear, apple, and peach seedlings and
dwarfing rootstocks I had growing in my garden and
stored in a cooler bare-root over the past winter. 
This spring, I pulled them out for a couple days,
placing them in a box of moist vermiculite until they
began to break dormancy.  I grafted about 10 of each
fruit type, mostly using a cleft graft,
whip-and-tongue on a few.  A few scions I placed in a
glass of water while preparing the rootstock, mostly I
just worked quick so the scion wouldn't dry out.  Used
a cloth grafting tape, wrapped very tightly, since
scionwood was thinner than the rootstock in every
case, just matched up the cambium on one side.  I
coated the graft site and the scion (except buds) with
wax from a toilet bowl gasket.  I then carefully
buried the whole thing in the mosit vermiculite and
held at about 70 degrees for 2 weeks, then planted in
my new garden.  After a few weeks, it looks like 100%
of the pears have taken, some have a couple inches
growth already.  Looks like about 90% on the apples,
and 0% on the peaches. I know peaches are supposed to
be more difficult, anyone have any ideas on what i
could do differently next time?  Looks like I may need
to stick to summer budding on those, but it's harder
to get good fresh bud wood at that time...

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