2nd National Apple Scion Wood Exchange

[littlemark]

The 2nd National Apple Scion Wood Exchange is coming to Buckingham Nurseries next weekend (6th-7th Feb) 10am-4pm. This is an opportunity to aquire rare and interesting scion wood for grafting purposes. As it's an exchange, you may also like to bring something interesting yourself.

More details here: Buckingham Garden Centre Newsletter & Garden Tips

Cheers, Mark

[BFG]

Thanks. That's not too far away from me and learning how to graft would be interesting.

How do you go about taking some scion wood? I haven't done any pruning yet, could I take some prunings?

[littlemark]

Fairly straightforward, and a natural by-product of winter pruning, though don't go pruning a young tree just for the sake of it.

Scion wood has a much better chance of a succesful union with the roostock the younger, and therefore more vigorous it is. In practice this usually means last years growth only, though two year old growth (or older) can be grafted if that's all you can find on your tree. Watershoots are good, just make sure they are emerging high enough up the tree to be the variety you want to graft, and not the rootstock (unless you want to grow the rootstock variety...). Really old wood is not suitable as scion for grafting.

Winter prune as normal (if neccesary) and keep all the prunings. You only need a few inches of scion wood to establish a new tree, so a long year-old shoot can be good for several grafts when cut up into smaller sections. I store my scions in a zip-lock plastic bag in the fridge until ready to use. If it's going to be some weeks before use it may be worth putting a bit of moist kitchen roll around the lower ends of the wood.

Oh! DON'T FORGET TO LABEL THE BAGS!!!

Cheers, Mark

[BFG]

Thanks. That's very helpful.

[littlemark]

This year's wood bagged up and ready for the exchange.

[BFG]

Wow. How organised. I'm impressed.

Does the apple bit take place at a certain time, or is it just a case a turning up sometime between 10-4, plastic bag in hand?

I need to assess my trees and work out what needs trimming. It says try grafting your own tree, which sounds great.

[littlemark]

Just turn up. The earlier the better I suppose, it's a kind of swap-shop so not much point bringing interesting scions in the last few hours of the event, but not so crucial if your after something yourself. I believe there will be a bit of grafting going on, and you may be abale to get your choice of scion grafted onto rootstock at the event for a small charge. Grafting is really not that difficult with a sharp knife and a bit of practice.

Mark