Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - [NAFEX] Mislabeled scion wood

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>
  • To: NAFEx <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Mislabeled scion wood
  • Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:03:29 -0400


How often does it happen that you receive some scion wood and only years later do you find out it was not labeled correctly?

I'm going to mention Richard Fahey's name right up front because I'm not going to say anything bad about him. If (If!)he sent one mislabeled scion out of all the ones I ordered, well, he's only human and I really have no problem with that. I've never met him in person but all of us who are actually members of Nafex know of him from his articles in Pomona and his ads offing scion wood for sale.

I have only paid for batches of scion wood maybe 5 times in my life. At least 2 of those times were orders from Mr. Fahey. I'm very grateful to him for taking the considerable time to maintain all those fruit tree cultivars and for taking even more time to offer scions from those trees to the public. I know he's not the only one doing this but his list is quite impressive.

Now to my point. One of the cultivars I ordered was Arlet (AKA Swiss Gourmet). I had some question about its hardiness but I had high hopes for it and I grafted it as a new top to an existing tree. What I get does not resemble the Arlet apple I tasted that made me want the apple in my yard.
The Arlet apple that I tasted years before was grown hundreds of miles south of here, so I knew there could be differences. What my tree produces are small to medium, solid red, firm apples that ripen very late. I let them hang on the tree into October after all my other apples are picked and they are far too hard to eat. What ever they are, the cultivar is very productive and I grafted it too high up to hand thin them. A bad combination! They store until spring when they become barely edible because they are still very firm and tart.
I ordered Arlet scion wood from a different source 2 years ago and if those new Arlet branches produce the same fruit, I will be very surprised. With a little luck, I could get the first fruit from the new grafts this season.

Any comments? Have others experienced similar situations?

Steve in the Adirondacks ... who finds it impossible to ask a question that is short and to the point!




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page