Hi,
I read that an orchard in Chelan was prebudding Adara scions with cherry chip buds prior to grafting onto Plum rootstock as a Top working effort to convert plum to cherry production. The Adara buds that grew would be later pruned off for future scionwood, or chip budded with cherry buds while the cherry buds on the Adara scion were allowed to develop for fruit production.
This caused me to consider prebudding some Adara scions with compatible stone fruit buds prior to grafting this spring. My search on prebudding led to no hints on best practice. My plan is to chip bud some scions about 2 weeks prior to top working a cherry tree. Seal the prebudding scions with parafilm, and store indoors at a temperature of 70 degrees in a dark, humid container to encourage callousing. Then use them to top work, once the rootstock has broken dormancy.
If you have any experience with prebudding, good or bad, please advise?
Yesterday I prebudding a number of fig cuttings to test this process prior to rooting.
Dennis
Kent, wa
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