Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - [NAFEX] grafting wood vigor

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Doud <doudone@netusa1.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] grafting wood vigor
  • Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:37:27 -0400

with apples (and perhaps other species?) there is great variation from variety to variety vis-a-vis the relative development of buds from the base of the stick to the terminal - observation of the behavior of 2 and 3 year old wood will show that some varieties develop fruiting spurs on the two year old wood toward the terminal end - these varieties tend to be the large growing, leggy, pendulous types, with lots of 'blind' wood, ex. Northern Spy - - while others develop those fruiting spurs close to the base of last years growth - generally these are better behaved varieties such as Golden Delicious -

another consideration is that 'watersprouts' are sometimes collected as scionwood - sometimes this is the only vigorous wood on the tree - but watersprouts by their nature have a lot of 'blind' wood and undeveloped buds - a stick containing the terminal will grow off readily - a stick from near the base? maybe not satisfactory -

in regards to the potted grafts dying - I have bench grafted literally thousands of apple and pear trees and grown them off in one gallon pots for summer planting - I have never had trees get 6-9" of growth and then die - some may not grow at all, some may push out a leaf or two and collapse, but if they get going, they are good till the wildlife gets them or the nurseryman takes a vacation - so I'd judge something strange went on in regards all dying after getting off to a good start - bad/over fertilizer? - dried out? (they get about 18" of growth and somedays they need watered twice... -

dunno - but the strategy of bench grafting and growing in pots for summer planting is a sound one -

good luck with the next batch -
D






  • [NAFEX] grafting wood vigor, David Doud, 04/22/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page