North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/14/2009 12:22:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, dwoodard@becon.org writes:

> Also, if the trees concerned were apples on dwarfing rootstocks, they 
> would want to avoid scion rooting. On the other hand if you are 
> propagating on "standard" sized stocks probably you don't care about 
> scion rooting or you may prefer it
.

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth.

I'm not a nursery therefore am not grafting small rootstock as fruit nurseries usually do. They plant in spring, bud them next fall, grow one summer then dig & sell that fall. They work with material that is only inches high therefore are forced to graft low. To grow the material an extra year to be able to graft higher is added expense caring the understocks.  

Is isn't easier to graft low. The budder crawls on his hands and knees. I've watched them at Starks, and a few other nurseries. It is my conclusion that grafting low is more a matter of nursery necessity, except maybe when grafting extreme dwarfing understock. That should be grafted low. 

I've found that I get better results when grafting persimmon at 16 inches than I do at 6 inches. You can top work trees 20 feet in the air. My point is, if your rootstock is say 3 feet high, graft high. Splice or whip & tongue works extremely well.             

Jerry


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