What to do with extra scions

I have grafted some 40 trees so far and I used up all the rootstocks I had. I have over 50 scionwood left over, anyone have a suggestion what I can use these cherry scions for?

I am in EWR area where are you? I have a few root stocks and nothing to graft.

1 Like

-give away
-save them in dubbel plastic bag in the bottom of your fridge, as backup to regraft if another graft fails.
-use them to chip bud below the graft on the rootstock as backup if the above graft fails.

4 Likes

Alright I’ll wait to see how many do end up failing so I can regraft, I just realized the other scions may not be viable as I froze them pretty cold. Could I experiment trying to root them as cuttings?

You can experiment to your hearts content. Having a few extra on hand is a good idea, so you can regraft in an emergency. Or get some more rootstocks or give them away. All good ideas

1 Like

if they are sweet cherries they don’t root easily in my experience.

Do you freeze them in the freezer? or just kept them outside/fridge?

1 Like

I put them in a freezer with an INKBIRD temperature controller, so I let the temp where the prob was get down to 30F but the wood I have left was kept in the back where it probably was a lot colder. The wood is sour cherry.

it’s worth a shot. But below freezing is not ideal for graft wood. And most fruit tree’s don’t strike cuttings super easy. (that’s why stool beds are more popular than hardwood cuttings) so i would count on them taking a month or few months to root.

Is there another way I can propagate these scions if cuttings don’t work?

root grafting. Digging up a cherry root. and grafting that to the scion/cutting

1 Like