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nafex - [NAFEX] avoid bench grafting

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  • From: Charles Paradise <machelp@attglobal.net>
  • To: breen@fedcoseeds.com, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [NAFEX] avoid bench grafting
  • Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 07:56:49 -0400

I have recently been looking at the technique of grafting the scion onto an upside down oriented rootstock as a way of encouraging self rooting. Does anyone have any info on the success of such a technique? I think it goes by another name, but I will use inverted seedling nurse graft as a starting place.

Heron Breen

My reaction is, that this amounts to bench grafting, and bench grafting is a pratice to avoid.  It violates requirement #1 of grafting - to practice on healthy material.  By definition, when you dig a root completely out of the ground, you have just made it instantly unhealthy.  Isn't it interesting that we call roots and scions "material"?  As if a bolt of cloth or a bar of steel to be cut and finished...however these plants are living things...not raw material in a mill.  Maybe I'm not a quick learner, but when I stray and start regarding plants as material to be manipulated lots of dead plants is the result that reminds what they are really - sensitive living things.  If you're down in Massachusetts sometime stop by and I'll show you some little apples I bench-grafted and are dead sticks now...

Can someone print a warning in Pomona warning members to avoid bench grafting?  It's so 1920's...

Charlie Paradise



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