North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hélène Dessureault <interverbis@videotron.ca>]

Thomas,
I once visited a tree propagation nursery near Montreal at grafting time,
and they had a tool imported from France, that was actually a hand operated
graft cutter for doing the English double cut graft (I don't recall the name
of this graft at the moment).
They were doing a mass production involving 4 persons.
One to cut the scion wood to three buds and to cut the root stock (therefore
making a near perfect match), one to do the graft, one to dip in wax and the
fourth person to run around keeping everyone happy, which also involved
storing the grafted little trees in rows in sand boxes mounted on a big
rolling platform to be transported to the root cellar where the little trees
where kept until they could be planted outdoors. Quite organized and
producing thousands of grafts a day for a short period in the Spring!

This cutter had an arm coming down much like a precision paper cutter that
used to be found in printing places. The person operating the device would
bring down the arm with one hand while the other hand was placing the scion
wood or the rootstock in the proper place to be cut. It was fast and
precise.
They were different grooves I think in the bottom part of the cutter
receiving the wood to be cut, which were used for sizing the diameter to a
degree.
But the person doing the cut gave the impression of being quite good at this
function and probably had quite an eye for sizes.

In grafting, the precision of the cut is important. It has to be a clean
cut, without squashed or loose material at the edge of the cut.

He said they had ordered this graft cutter by mail from France.

Hélène, zone 3-4.

P.S. Last Wednesday morning, it was -30 Celsius on the outdoors thermometer.
The coldest day of the winter yet. It's getting warmer now, but the cold
spell lasted three days. This is why we are zone 3-4. It does get that cold
at times.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>
To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 12:20 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] Splice Graft Guide


> Hello All,
>
> I like using the splice graft too, but even then I have cambium matching
> problems.
>
> Has anyone ever made a splice graft guide jig?
>
> Possibly a 1/4" ID PVC pipe, with an angled cut at one end would work.
> Slide the rootstock into the pipe jig until it jams, follow the pipe cut
and
> cut the rootstock, then do the same with the scion.
>
> Since you are sliding the rootstock/scion into the same pipe the sizing
> where it stops should be the same diameter.
>
> Would this work for those with matching problems?  Are there better
homemade
> jig ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
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