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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Graftwood - how long will it keep?

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  • From: Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Graftwood - how long will it keep?
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:56:18 -0400

K Q wrote:
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.

I wonder if it has something to do with the constant temperatures of the refrigerator compared to the fluctuating temperatures outdoors?
Spring of 2007, I mail ordered some scion wood. I had stored it only about 2 months. When I took it out of the refrigerator to do the grafting, 2 of the 4 cultivars of pear had started to break dormancy showing green tips. About half the apricots were doing the same. (All the apples and plums stayed dormant.) I grafted them all anyway. Every pear graft grew. The apricots were not nearly so forgiving.

Steve in the Adirondacks




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