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[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I am re-posting this apropos of Alan's discussion of grafting and timing.  I first tried bud grafting.  The Ashmeads buds took, although the attachment point is ugly.  The Karmijn buds originally seemed to take, but then the graft-scar got ugly and I think the tissue dried out and died.  I obviously need to improve my bud grafting technique.  I may have tried this twice, in two successive years, but I'm not sure.

Last year I tried twig grafting in the spring.  I cut scions off the karmijn and popped them onto the nearby Ashmeads within a few minutes.  No cutting dormant or anything.  (I asked for advice on this and didn't get any, so I did the easiest thing.)  Both grafts took well.  (and one is trying to fruit this year - see my other post today.)  I don't remember the date I grafted, but I got very little growth last year, just a good healing-in.

Ginda

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>

Date: December 10, 2005 7:20:39 AM EST

All this talk of rootstocks has reminded me of the question I will face
this spring.  Last spring I bought some trees from Cummins.  Two of
them were trees I wanted, and I purchased the third mostly to trial its
rootstock.

Ashmeads Kernal of M7
Tydeman's Late ORange on M111
Golden Russet on G30 (purchased mostly for the rootstock)

I also want to grow a Karmijn, of which they were sold out.  I have a
couple of branches of Karmijn growing on a crab.  Other than the winter
moths and scab, they look healthy enough, but don't get much sun.

Does anyone know how sensitive G30 is to random viruses?  The simplest
thing to do would be to graft the Karmijn directly to the G30, but it's
on a crab with 4 other cultivars, and who knows what viruses lurk in
that tree.  (I had another multi-graft crab that died a couple of years
after I grafted to it.  We had two summers of drought, but I think it
was probably weakened by some virus.  I was careful about not moving
directly between the trees - washed everything and grafted on different
days with differently sourced scions, but it is a warning.)

So the safer thing is probably to move the Asmeads to the G30, and the
Karmijn to the M7.  But it's more work and exposes me to a higher risk
of messing up with the grafting.

Advice?

Also, if I'm grafting among trees on the property, would you recommend
grafting spring twigs or summer buds?  And if spring twigs, would you
collect them early, or just cut them when I am ready to use them, in
April?

Thanks,
Ginda Fisher
eastern Mass.  zone 6