„Room“ grafting
When to performe grafing procedure indoors?
The so-called room or indoor grafting is performed during the February. You have to use fruit seedlings (rootstocks) that have well-formed root for this kind of grafting. Rootstock needs to be cleaned from excess branches and need to be at least 8 millimeters thick on union point. They are taken from the base (orchard, plant nursery) in the fall. They need to be shorten 5-10 cm above the root canal and trap in the wet sand, where they are stored untill grafting procedure.
Scion branches are being cut to half after the leaves comes off and stored in wet sand in cold rooms. Before the grafting procedure they are being cut to two or three buds.
The base with a wet substrate (sand, peat, turnip) needs to be exposed to a higher temperature around 18 degrees in order to cause a movement of fruit juices, 5 to10 days before grafting. Then, together with scions, they need to be washed from sand and other impurities. Different ways of grafting can be used: the whip graft, „English combine“ graft, the side graft. When the sand from rootstock and scion branches are joined and bonded, joint of rootstock and scion is coated with wax.
After that they need to be stored in wet sand in storageroom where the temperature is between 10 to 15 degrees and air humidity around 80 percent. You can use wooden boxes filled with wood chips stored in rooms with appropriate temperature for this purpose. In the next 20 days grafts are left in stratified untill the full joint of rootstock and scion. You have to take care that the buds don’t open, because many nutritients will be dried after planting. This is achieved by regular ventilation of the room. Prepared (full joint) grafts needs to be stored at a 3 to 5 degrees temperature in a wet substrate.
The source of the article: novosti.rs (Večernje novosti)
