Scion Exchange

The California Rare Fruit Growers held their annual scion exchange in San Francisco and I consider that a good enough reason to put up with Bay Bridge traffic to get over there. The number of fruit varieties represented in the piles of pruned wood at a scion exchange is a little staggering, but it's pretty fun to rifle through it all, searching for just what you need or for something new you didn't even know you want.

For just a $3 entry fee I was able to pick up nine scions from five different varieties: Black Tartian, Van, and Republican cherries; Santa Rosa plum; and Desert King fig. The cherry scions will all get grafted onto my dwarf Ranier cherry. The plum will be grafted onto a peach rootstock that I'd tried grafting onto last year in my class; the graft took at first, but then failed, so now I'll try again. The fig scion is not for grafting, but to try rooting.

My yard is small but I'd really love to see it filled with small fruit trees someday. These scion exchanges are a great opportunity to build my mini-orchard.

Grafting 101--Success!

After attending the California Rare Fruit Growers Association's scion exchange in January, I was excited to try grafting. In early February we covered grafting and budding in the propagation class I'm taking at Merritt College and in the lab there I tried doing a whip-and-tongue graft of a plum onto a peach rootstock. That plant is still in the greenhouse on campus and I haven't checked yet to see how it's doing. But after that class, I felt ready to try grafting on my own and on February 17 I grafted two Fuji scions onto apple rootstocks. Here's how it went.

Here are the supplies I worked with: leather-palmed gloves (we used kevlar butcher's gloves in class and I would recommend getting those); a sharp utility knife; pruning shears; scissors; alcohol for cleaning the blades; parafilm for wrapping the graft; saran wrap for covering the graft (next time I do this, I'll use the press-and-seal kind of wrap); a brown paper bag for covering the entire plant; and green garden tape for securing the paper bag. In the future, I would also try using grafting wax to seal the grafts--apparently this really increases the success rate.


I started with two apple rootstocks, about the size of a pencil in diameter:


I got two kinds of apple scions at the scion exchange--Early Fuji (the two long, narrow sticks) and Fuji (the smaller, shorter stick). It's important that the scion and the rootstock be the same diameter at the location of the graft.

I cut the rootstock off in between nodes a few inches above the ground with the pruning shears. Using the utility knife, I made a diagonal cut on the rootstock and then made a downward slice about one-third of the way in at the top of the diagonal cut. I made matching cuts on the scion and fit the two pieces together:

Here is a closer look at the graft, and as you can see, it's not a very good fit. It's really a challenge to get the rootstock and scion cuts to match perfectly and it must take a lot of practice. I was worried that this graft wouldn't take, but it did seem that much of the cambium layers were lining up so I figured I'd hope for the best.


The next step is wrapping the graft in parafilm. Parafilm is a very stretchy plastic-like film used in labs. It helps to seal the graft up tight so the scion doesn't dry out, but it also allows for buds to break through the parafilm, which eventually deteriorates and falls off. I also trimmed the top of the scion and wrapped that in parafilm as well.


If I were using grafting wax, I'd have covered the graft and the top cut with that, but instead I wrapped it in saran wrap to keep moisture from getting to the cut wood.


Following all that, I covered the entire plant with a brown paper bag and put the pot in my carport, out of direct sunlight. I kept the plant lightly watered and after a couple weeks I took the paper bag off. Today I moved the plants out into the sunlight and removed the saran wrap. Here's what I saw:

The bud below the graft is from the rootstock and will need to be trimmed off, but the leaf buds at the top show that the scion is clearly alive and it appears the graft has taken. The other apple that I grafted hasn't budded so far, so I can't tell if that's just slow or if that graft failed.

As challenging and frustrating as it can be to make good matching cuts for grafting, I really enjoyed doing this and hope to do more of it. It's another example of how even far-less-than-perfect attempts in the garden can yield surprisingly good results.

Never Have So Many Been Made So Happy By So Many Sticks of Wood

Today I went to the annual scion exchange of the California Rare Fruit Growers Golden Gate Chapter. Unbelievable! For anyone interested in growing fruit, a scion exchange is like a glimpse of the promised land--so many possibilities, so much potential.

This was my first time at a scion exchange and for anyone who's never been to one, here's how it works: Members of the CRFG bring scions (generally, 6-12" cuttings) from their dormant fruit or nut trees. The scions are piled in labeled ziploc bags on tables, grouped by fuit type, and for a small admittance fee anyone can take one or two scions of as many varieties as they like to bring home and graft onto their own trees. Grafting allows you to get more variety from one tree and can also provide cross-pollinators--both of which are big bonuses if you have a limited space in your garden.

In addition to all the goodies you get to bring home--and perhaps even more importantly--you get access to people who have a wealth of information and years of experience growing fruit and grafting. At the Golden Gate Chapter's scion exchange, Idell Weydemeyer performed some quick demos that made the whole process seem quite easy and absolutely doable. Clearly, Idell is not timid with a grafting knife--one of her apple trees has over 40 grafts on it.

So what did I come home with for my $3 entrance fee and $2 raffle ticket (guaranteed to win something)? Four kinds of cherry scions (Black Tartian, Van, Black Republican, and Lapins); Granny Smith apple scions for a classmate; Fuji and Early Fuji apple scions for me and two apple rootstocks to graft them onto; and a Mission fig cutting to root. I also purchased a couple dollars' worth of Parafilm to wrap the grafts in. I could have brought home a lot more, but why be greedy? There's always next year's exchange.

The scions are now safely stored in the vegetable bin of my refrigerator, wrapped in damp paper towels and sealed in in ziploc bags, waiting for the right time for grafting. A few more weeks, I think, and surgery can begin.