North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[John Bunker <john.p.bunker@gmail.com>]

I   know that many people use damp paper towels, wax etc.   I have  
never found these measures to be necessary. We store large amounts of  
scionwood in plastic bags with no moisture at all and no wax.  We  
generally use large thick black garbage bags.  It might be that the  
accumulated moisture from all the wood keep them from drying out.  We  
store the bags at 35 - 40 degrees.  I also store a few sticks of this  
and that from time to time and in small plastic bags with no wax or  
moisture.  Again with no ill effects.  When we store wood in the  
refrigerator or root cellar, we triple bag it.  We have never had mold  
problems.

Snowing up here again today.  Three feet on the ground.

John Bunker
Fedco
trees@fedcoseeds.com
www.fedcoseeds.com
PO Box 520
Waterville ME 04903
207-873-7333




On Feb 25, 2011, at 7:40 AM, david.maxwell@dal.ca wrote:

> I suspect that there is more belief than science involved, and that  
> I may trigger strongly held
> opinions, but I would like to seek the collective wisdom on the best  
> way to store scion wood.
> I have always put a little bit of moist paper towel over the cut  
> ends, put them in a Baggie, and
> stored them in the fridge until spring.  I have recently had strong  
> objections that this will result
> in the scions becoming mouldy because of the humidity, (and indeed  
> they do sometimes
> develop a surface growth of a white mould, but this does not seem to  
> affect the takes, or do
> the scions the slightest harm).  It was suggested that the better  
> way is to dip the ends in
> some sort of wax to "seal" them, and then store them dry. Will they  
> dry out like this, and will
> the drying not kill the scions just as surely?   Any thoughts or  
> advice?
> __________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration or find out  
> more about the list here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
> NAFEX web site: http://www.nafex.org/