North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

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