Continuation of an older topic of December 9, 2020
and during a middle conversation of the importance of storing scions and about Ensuring a good Cherry graft.
Now then on my especially hard, maybe slow, certainly hard grafting experiences of many years, and -Finally success! So here we go with a couple pictures uploaded today of a very old mountain pass hybrid cherry.
First picture is a double graft done all at once in first week of April. (click image to expand)
The upper section as previously stated is hybrid and wild cherry. One of which had proven previously impossible to survive grafting for several years in spite of my very improved method of scionwood storage a bit below freezing. The top graft made to 'shirofugen' flowering cherry is this several years ago drawing of mine (click), but instead, done without the tongue. The rootstock is a shooting sweet cherry stock 'F12/1' that is well (finally) established!
The thing that's especially hard is due to the fact the original tree is in a wild and never maintained or summer irrigated condition. (trick to get around this will be explained)
Second picture is how to go about using the same hybrid wild cherry scion and grafting up to another hybrid wild cherry root. (click image to expand)
The reasons I feel this worked is that the root section had to be kept at freezing since December and even kept cool during the grafting itself due to root browning very quickly. Throughout that 4+ month period I feel that it's important to keep the root undisturbed, so this is still the original container. Roots have the ability to get into a state of shock. The scraper blade and the simplicity of the grafting method (click) assure direct cambial contact. Had I not used all blade and instead used a regular knife with a handle I would have because the glass and done in a cold hand numbing place dexterity issues would almost fail such a graft, trust my feelings. Don't trust your fingers holding a blade without the tape wrapping as shown to protect cutting yourself.
So the idea I would like to impress here due to the success of this experiment is this mountain pass sweet cherry hybrid with the native bitter cherry both pictured needs special handling. The scions for each were collected the same night as election night in November just in the squeak of time as the first rains were starting that very night.
And that's why. And why not to waste years (as I had) of time collecting fully dormant wild cherry germplasm from the wild when almost dormant is ensuring the health /therefore life of the scion.
Another small scale note is the reason that I double grafted 'shirofugen' cherry was that I actually started to not have faith this hybrid cherry was actually virus clean due to further failures over years. The upper graft would have been rejected and screened out by the virus hypersensitive 'shirofugen' flowering cherry. So in that sense I was also lucky to get as far as I had.
So are you saying that it is actually better to take scions just before hard freezes or should they be taken well before the freezing weather sets in?
>> And that's why. And why not to waste years (as I had) of time collecting fully dormant wild cherry germplasm from the wild when almost dormant is ensuring the health /therefore life of the scion.
If a graft leafs out and starts to grow after six or eight weeks does that mean it has been successful or is there still a possibility of failure? I ask because nearly all my cherry grafts have leafed out and I want to celebrate.
Zone 6a in the moraines of eastern Connecticut.
Thanks Crankyankee!
When I post or start a topic I sometimes wonder if I'm creating what looks like a log instead of the my original intent of helping others avoid so many of the same pitfalls of my own past mistakes.
You may not have the complete picture. To simplify let me take your comment and change you to color:
So are you saying that it is actually better to take scions just before hard freezes or should they be taken well before the freezing weather sets in?
I took them the evening of November 3 when leaves were still attached to the stems. Some leaves were falling but many were still firm. The concerning issue here really is the negative atmospheric pressure inside the vascular system verses the surroundings here.
>> And that's why. And why not to waste years (as I had) of time collecting fully dormant wild cherry germplasm from the wild when almost dormant is ensuring the health /therefore life of the scion.
(pitfalls of past mistakes)
If a graft leafs out and starts to grow after six or eight weeks does that mean it has been successful or is there still a possibility of failure?
[ I ask because nearly all my cherry grafts have leafed out and I want to celebrate. ]
[not sure what you mean]
It's been my experience with the difficult sweet cherry scions that after grafting they will always push buds even when stored the wrong way meaning several degrees above freezing temperature is the wrong way to store it. They will fail due to what I think is the systemic spread of bacteria in storage.
Again ...this isn't a log but an avenue to pursue all of the theoretical aspects of hard to accomplish grafting techniques. So what I think we are accomplishing here is gathering wood while it's still early enough to lower the rate of bacterial infection (ie. bacterial pseudomonas syringae), and what temperature to store it at in order to keep what infection that is already there dormant.
The hypothesis here is that the bacteria that is systemic to the scion being stored is active at above 34F while the cherry scion is dormant and unable to defend. It is known that these kinds of bacteria are very active at the 34+ F degree mark. However my examples if they work will start to shed some light into the matter of how the wood of a cherry still attached to the tree become more successfully winners compared to those stored at say 36F in the cooler.
Crankyankee: I have several papers of these old articles sent to me 15 years ago from Corvallis. Even ever since that time I also have looked for progress against this terrible scourge and yet nothing fast coming to help solve what to do other than paying attention to irrigation, choice of rootstock, specific cultivar selection, the higher the graft on specific rootstocks the better etc.
Some of this older data is still very well up to date of where we are. One of these that will shed the best light on what I mean is from Oregon (ie. Cameron 1970, the link below).
https://www.apsnet.org/publica.....0_1343.htm
---------------------------------------------
A May-10th update of proof of take for a graft test per image above:
<--- click to enlarge
As noted in yesterday's image upload of both cherry wood types, that they have passed all tests of of time for -storage and special cherry temperature requirements. The unkown variable is where the chill hours requirements were met(?).
So hypothetical question-2: It could have been met at around freezing temperatures of scions at storing them, or was it passed on up from the 'F-12-1' massive rootstock system of which chilling had already established?
//end of update
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
1 Guest(s)