North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["K Q" <kumquat@operamail.com>]

One September I did some plum budding. After I budded all I wanted, I put the 
scions back in the frig and promptly forgot them, did some apples at this 
time too, as I remember.

Come Spring, the plum wood was still fresh and viable, and, get this, NOT 
coming our of dormancy in the frig, but all my other plum wood from winter 
trading WAS out of dormancy? Puzzled, I used the September wood again, this 
time in the spring, and it worked as well as ever.

Later on I ran into somebody elses statements that said if you remove prunus 
wood from the rootsource before it has had a chance to get its full 
complement of chill hours (necessary to break dormancy) it will stay dormant 
much longer. So now I make a practice of trying to take wood in late October 
or sometime in November. Stays dormant much better. There is something of a 
nexus between getting chill hours outdoors while being connected to a 
rootstock that makes things get the required chill hours. Early collected 
scions receive all kinds of chill hours in the 33 degree frig, but does not 
come out of dormancy spontaneously!

I am still looking for the explanation of what the rootstock has to do with 
it ....

Ken Q.

=============================
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:07:16 EDT
> From: Jwlehman@aol.com
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Graftwood - how long will it keep?
> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Message-ID: <c79.3924304b.35adfb04@aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> >     I've kept it for over a year in excellent condition (by 
> > accident...forgot it!).  If it is still plump it will work now.
> >
> >
> 
> Ed is correct. If stored properly such that is retains moisture, cambium
> still green, thus plump, it will be viable a long time. I've 
> successfully grafted
> virginiana persimmon scion wood that had been stored 14 months.  Keeping it
> from dehydrating or buds from decaying from too much moisture is key.
> 
> Temperature and species is also critical. I'd suggest storing scions as 
> close
> to 32 degrees as possible. Example: Cherry scion wood will not store long at
> 45 degrees as the buds will swell starting to expand. Then success rates 
> drop
> dramatically.
> 
> Jerry


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