I ordered 4 apple root stocks (M106) from 39th Parallel and we plan to graft wood from a friend’s aging, decrepit, damaged. But because he was leaving town for the winter we had pruned the tree pretty hard -and pretty well cut the best scion wood. He threw it in a pile and left town.
I went over today to find a few scions on the tree and it was slim pickings. I cut a few too-small twigs and then started rummaging around in the discards. There were several good candidates and I trimmed the bottoms off, finding nice, green moist-looking wood just a couple of inches in.
Brought the lot home and prepped them. I have both the fresh cut and some of the older ones in bags in the fridge, and I stuck some in a pint jar of water to be left at room temperature, and some in another pint jar of water in the fridge.
I suspect that by the time we graft in late April/early May they’ll all be in good shape, except the ones at room temp, which I hope will have swelling buds.
From what I’ve read (believe it or not I’m not old enough to speak from personal experience on this one) “back in the day” orchards would take cuttings and stash them in a snow bank. Makes sense to me, and my cuttings were stored, accidentally, somewhat like that. We’ll see what happens.
the original lamb’s curly grained black walnut was cut down and hauled to a sawmill. A couple of months later, someone realized it was figure grained and was able to track down the logger who cut it. A visit to the site showed several limbs partly covered in snow. Scions were successfully grafted preserving a variety that consistently produces figure grained walnut trees.
ive kept many a early delivered dormant tree or bush under the snow until the snow melted and i could plant it out. shoveled to the ground. layed it flat, still in the box then buried with about 3 ft. of snow. makes sense with the scions.
Just out of boredom; I’ve done a few differing things. My own cuttings I put in water with wax over top cuts. I sliced up P.1 into chunks and soaked them in acid for a day; and now have them half buried in moist sand. The rest are in the fridge until rootstock gets here.