Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - [NAFEX] grafting notes, 2007

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: tanis grif <tanisgrif@yahoo.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] grafting notes, 2007
  • Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 09:29:38 -0700 (PDT)

After several years of doing this, when I now think I've a right to know what
to
expect, 07 showed plenty to wonder about. I had 100% success with
bench-grafting
several cultivars of apple onto newly-shipped commercial Bud.118s. I
wouldn't have
bothered with bench-grafting because I'd never had worthwhile success rates
before,
but autumn 06 had me promising to salvage some apple trees. Even though I
had no
rootstocks in a nursery row-- my preferred graft method is mid-spring onto
planted/
established rootstocks. What's a grafter to do but say yes, collect the
scionwood,
and search for a nursery selling a few rootstocks?

I ordered some from a highly regarded nursery popular with NAFEXers. I won't
name
it because I did have a problem but it was entirely from my own assumptions
and I
don't want a good nursery blamed for my failings. But, I advise you can't
believe
that what you call quality is the same as other peoples' definition, and you
must
inquire about exact dimensions of nursery stock if you expect to get those
exact
dimesions.

So anyway, picture me whittling like mad on rootstocks which are too tough
for me to
do decent cuts, cursing the day I promised to do "last chance" salvage
grafts. The
only things I did different from the last bench-graft attempt was I worked
very fast
(and was possibly using less stressed rootstocks than in the past.) The
callussing
interval was the usual, including the occasional bump when I'd move the
bundle from
one space to another (chasing the proper temperature), but that rubber
electrician's
splicing tape (or "self-fusing" rubber tape) must really hold well as a graft
wrap
because no grafts bumped apart. I finished a small deer-exclusion about the
time
bud-swell on some of these bench-grafts was starting to concern me. Then,
with the
little trees rowed out & watered in, I was gone a few days. My jaw actually
dropped
when I later checked the rows and ALL the grafts had a leaf or 2!! "Well,
that just
proves the plastic bag kept the scion portions moist during the callusing",
said I,
"half could still give up". None has yet, although a couple were growing
slowly and
I'm not intending to check them til after this hot weekend.

Then I tried my regular grafting, during late May. What a disappointment
this year!
Slow growth, if any. The only thing I can figure for this is my scionwood
for
later grafts was stored in the same refrigerator as some stratifying seeds
(fruit
tree seeds.) Separate triple-bagging of the seeds AND the scionwood
apparently
wasn't sufficient.

I did a graft-demo, in late May, of a few grafts in a small plot where the
class
members had access to return later and see the results. I used mostly rubber
electrician's splicing tape but also parafilm as a comparison. I told them
I'd
never tried parafilm, gave them samples of each of the wraps to compare the
feel,
said I wasn't confident about the parafilm, but told them to come back in
2-3-4
weeks to see what we get. Of course the parafilm-wrapped work beat the
splicing
tape! Don't use this as a testamonial, because I was working with different
scions
of differing qualities & onto various rootstocks, and working with apple and
pear.
What it means is I want to compare the rubber tape vs parafilm on a larger
number of
grafts with all the same topwork & all the same rootstock!

Tanis Cuff, s.WI, temps over 90 this weekend so I'm wondering why the heck
I'm a
gardener even for a hobby



____________________________________________________________________________________
Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page