In addition to storing the wood down to colder. Which puts storing the wood out of the scope for most of us. Ideally is 32 degrees and laying the wood sideways so distal and proximal stay solid or frozen in either state in between the cells. Better HOS dot org context is to search Lehman and look for the blue text on the page.

Well John, I don't know if Jerry Shroyer or Ted Swenson have grafted cherry before. I may have met them at most once. The only way for me to accurately say for sure if collections of cherry wood with leaves still attached is test take them from my 3 new cherry trees that still have all green and thus, yet, any leaves have not been purged due to very late removal from the nursery cooler conditions in the month of May. 

I keep talking to cherry experts almost every year. The last expert that had any say on grafting cherry was one of those in McMinnville Oregon during a staffing shift. They prefer budding from properly stored cherry wood and they don't use the whole stick as per whip and tongue. When a bud fails there is a second year they will be lined up once more for another graft because there is still a cherry leader that is unaffected in the budding process. Many could possibly be attributed to poor alignment and not the improper storage of scions, but this was the owner I was discussing it with who does attribute success rates with cold 32 degree conditions at the point of freezing, as well as the many other authorities such as Lehman. 

So (John), this only adds to a still growing list of evidence that the aim of cherry wood storage is more important than other woods, but there are no written references other than here and what's written in my mind from my own testing over the years. The rest of society collect outside of west of the Cascades and no studies are necessary to pin-point our problems after the cherry industry since it's PNW inception is now gone. Hood River and The Dalles Oregon area farmers in the mid Cascades are always being trained how to properly transition 'greenhouse operation cherry grafting' (ie. McMinnville) into the field so it could certainly pin-point that attention should also be observed for transitioning of scions too, and that there are likely common reasons involved, in this case the threat of disease. 

When you say you don't store cherry scions at near freezing has yet to add up for me. There are waivers between cultivars that you're forgetting about here and there may be a few that can be taken in PNW conditions as such yet to find out which ones?

The only way you have then that carries the least amount of risk would be getting yours gathered and stuffed with mine then. I will have 'coral champagne', 'attica', and 'blackpearl^(r)' as some of my newer cherry for you and if there are not any patents. All three of them looking really healthy but still full green I decided to build a temporary shelter and wait a bit longer before gathering up any yet. They go as wood as pollinators in interior Alaska for pin cherry breeding purposes and up there this kind of grafting has really fared well upon pin cherry as long as I bend trees over and under snow blanketing. 

These are the "how and why" I ended up with a high amount of experienced knowledge etc. about sweet cherry, and not much about persimmons, for which later I found out there is little in common cherry to persimmon. Chill hours is another interesting question because between now and next growing season the interior of Alaska has too low of chilling requirements (32-45F) and my future woody cherry grafts must get there fully cured. If chill hours on my three outside here were established by now (not) I could simply freeze at well below 32 degrees.

This latter idea of storing wood of all deciduous woodies below freezing for all things works well enough most of the time in a freezer box but it depends more on the temperature depending on species. Sweet cherry is more tender than sour cherry. Persimmons I won't know. Chill hours won't accumulate under 32 though, so it's a hard choice. I think you have my email.