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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Grafting--parafilm, Bizarre email issues, permanent tree labels!

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  • From: Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>
  • To: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>, NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Grafting--parafilm, Bizarre email issues, permanent tree labels!
  • Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 16:28:14 -0700 (PDT)


I'm having some problems with my Yahoo account which explains the bizarre
email this morning as well as the double posts the last while (good thing
this wasn't an email to my sisters/brothers: that could have been
embarrassing!). I don't know what happened: I clicked on reply, wrote and
sent my email to Kathy and next thing I know up pops up a box saying that I
have sent an email to NAFEX! The email separately went to Kathy as just what
I wrote with her letter at the bottom and then to NAFEX at the head of a
grafting thread???? I'm not computer literate enough to know how that
happened: if I click reply while reading her letter, how did Yahoo then add
the NAFEX email address? Anyway, I had to run out to an appointment all day
so I am just now dealing with what I know happened 6+ hours ago.


So about the grafting topic... I have grafted a couple hundred trees of
apples, pears, plums and peaches (mostly pomes, about 25 or so plums, 3 whole
peach trees!). I did all of last years grafting at the same time over 2 days
and there were some of every kind of tree. With the exception of the trees I
did in my grafting class (only one of those took: Alberta Buff- an apple Dr.
Evan's is saving from extinction), I have about a 98% success rate over the
last 3 years. I have only ever done bud grafting covered only by parafilm. I
use a box cutter knife to slice about an inch of bark (parallel the
rootstock) just down to the wood, cut off all but the bottom 1/8"-1/4" of the
bark flap, insert a bud sliced off the donor wood (about a 1" in length) into
the little lip left behind, wrap the whole works from below the slice to
above the slice with stretched parafilm to make sure it is tight and leave it
be. I have never used any sort of rubber band to hold
the bud on, just the parafilm. If the bud takes, it pushes it's way through
the parafilm which falls off by the next year.

Canadians looking for a supplier of nursery labels, parafilm, pruning shears,
that marvelous Lac Balsam (they aren't kidding, that stuff saved my windbreak
the year I planted it: the mice ate most of the bark off of the seedlings)
should try C.. Frensch LTD in Beamsville, ON (905-563-4774,
cfrensch@idirect.com). They are a bit strange to order from as you either
have to set up an account with them or order COD through Canada Post (that's
what I did), but I have been very happy with their service and so have
friends. I got plastic loop labels to label my grafts, the Lac Balsam
(artificial bark/tree wound healer), and parafilm from them.

I want to eventually order their permanent labels: aluminum labels with
copper wire that can be embossed with a pen. I'm wondering if anyone has
used them? I want to permanently label my trees by attaching these labels to
my wire hardware cloth tree guards: that way they won't ever strangle my
tree. But I'm wondering if there might be some sort of electrochemical
reaction if I attach copper wire to galvanized hardware cloth (my chemistry
isn't that great, but I think the AL is pretty electrically inert??). Any
thoughts on this?


Sarah
zone 3
Edmonton, AB

BIZARRE PART:

Hi Kathy,

Hope your arm gets better soon (my mom just did the same thing: you type
well)!
I will put a cheque in the mail today: I just wanted to touch base before I
just sent off some money!

Thank-you for your quick response,

Sarah Ewing
Pipestone, AB

GRAFTING PART:

Now I use parafilm.  It looks like it might be strong
enough to bind the graft, as well as protect it from
evaporation, but it's not.  Every graft save one
bud graft that I tried that way has failed. But if I
bind the graft with a rubber band and then wrap parafilm
over it I've had good luck.









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