Newbie grafter here and any advice is much appreciated.
I am trying to graft some white oaks, ginkgo and sycamores that are important to my family and I am really trying not to screw it up. And need to know if I need to be more patient.
My plan is:
I have received bur oak and sycamore rootstocks and I am planing on storing them till January. Roots dipped in a polymer slurry then wrapped tightly in a plastic bag. All rootstocks bundled in bucket and bucket in garbage bag and everything in the fridge.
Question:
Is there a danger of rotting the roots in a tightly wrapped plastic bag or is it a matter of not having any standing water in the bag and Ill be fine? Roughly a month in storage and a month on the callus pipe is that too much time with out breathing?
Next in early January I will collect scion and try both v notch and veneer grafts banded, parafilmed and and waxed scion and union then put on a callus pipe heated to 70 degrees for 21days in a root cellar hopefully maintaining an ambient 45 f. Then once callus has formed potted and moved to unheated shaded green house till last frost.
Question:
Is there a danger of grafting too early or does it not matter as long as the scion is dormant? Is this the whole purpose of the callus pipe? I will be grafting in zone 7a and oak scion is coming from zone 8a. Do you think the scion will be dormant enough or do I need to be more patient. Also any one ever dip there grafted scion in doc farewells to prevent desiccation? See any reason not to? Have wax but latex stuff just seems like less of a hassle or possible too hard to get a thin coat?
Any tips or trouble spots would good to know about would be great aswell.
No, you’re definitely fine. I’ve done that already and I know a nursery that keeps conifer seedlings (and deciduous conifers: Larch) in cold storage for more than 2-years w/o hesitation to sell them. Of course they have a perfect climate control system and I don’t know those parameters.
I have a bundle of American persimmon seedlings still in my fridge since 9-months ago. I haven’t checked on them but I will. I can tell you there is none rotten smell coming from the tightly wrapped plastic bag roots with moist sawdust under. The sawdust is moist but you could never squeeze a drip of water from any size snow ball of the stuff.
I see you’re in zone 7. That’s good. Put the roots in a common bin/buckets with slightly dampened sawdust or potting mix or topsoil… it doesn’t matter what you use. At 28 F roots undergo damage. If you can bring them inside for those (times) you should.
Your root cellar should be pitch black dark while the grafts heal on the callus pipe. And the grafts should be kept from sunlight after you’ve healed them and bundled them for further storage.
As long as 3-weeks of “cold temperatures” cycle thru an area, any hardwood tree or shrub has met dormancy requirements. It does not matter if your rootstocks are waking up or if they are completely dormant when grafted and put on the hot pipe. Your scions/buds must be dormant.
Yes, that’s fine. Even Bur oaks (and others) being grown in California zone 9-10 from sourced trees in the mid-west have been dormant for weeks already. So, come January 1, a month or more will have passed thus again meeting dormancy requirements for these I’m speaking of.
Don’t dip in Farwell’s. The stuff is made for grafting, yes, but it’s a messy product. You should be using water/wax combo or parafilm.
Have no experience with hot callusing pipe, so I’ll leave that to Dax and others.
Have, however, grafted hundreds of oaks, in the field and in pots. Learned from Fred Blankenship and Mark Coggeshall… best done with dormant-collected scions just as rootstock begins to unfurl leaves. I do a simple side-veneer bark graft, wrapped with rubber band and overwrapped with Parafilm M. Anticipate high success rate - 80-90+% takes.
Bur oak makes a great understock for other members of the white oak group.
Have just recently begun dabbling with the red/black oaks… have several Q.nutalli, Q.coccinea, and a Q.nigraXcoccinea hybrid grafted onto both Q.rubra and Q.velutina understocks.