Harvesting & Storing Scionwood

Before we get too far through winter, here is a blog post to cover how scionwood is cut and stored! We also have info about this on various help resources on our website, so perhaps you've already found it there. Just in case, here it is in blog form.

First off, let’s get some lingo defined:

Scionwood, or scions (pronounced "sigh-ons"), are the small, dormant branches you graft with in order to propagate a variety. Viable scions must be from the one-year (new) growth from a tree. The scionwood is the part of your graft that grows into the desired variety of fruit when your grafted tree is mature! For example, if you want to grow a Pink Pearl apple tree you would collect scionwood from a Pink Pearl tree and graft it onto rootstock.

Rootstock, on the other hand, is the base of the tree or bottom of your grafted plant. Rootstock varieties can impart characteristics such as tree vigour (relating to how soon it bears fruit), cold hardiness, and disease resistance in addition to it's main purpose of controlling overall mature tree size.

While we’re talking about grafting lingo, it is also worth noting that scionwood and budwood are essentially the exact same thing, the difference is in the time of year that they are collected/used and handled. Scionwood is cut & used while trees are dormant and budwood is cut & used while trees are not dormant.

Scionwood is best cut in late winter/early spring when it is warm enough that there is little risk of the cut suffering from freezing damage, but before the trees break dormancy. You want to harvest only one year growth, which is often smoother and shinier than the older growth. You should be able to see a growth collar (a small ridge around the branch) delineating the newer growth from the previous growing season (see photos of this in our pruning blog post). Bundle the cut scions -we use masking tape in the photo to left, and we've discovered that shrink wrap also works well - and label immediately. 

Cutting Scion for a Custom Graft

One of our most frequent scenarios is folks who want to save an old tree – these trees can often be difficult to collect scion from if they are so old they are barely growing. If you cannot find any one-year growth on an old tree, we strongly recommend following a 2-year pruning process: pruning it back in the spring to encourage some new growth that you can harvest the following spring. We've written an additional blog post about this topic where you can read in-depth about salvaging your old fruit tree.

Ideally, scionwood should be about pencil thickness, or the diameter of the planned rootstock so that the grafting cuts match up. You will want 2-3 buds per scion for grafting, or about 3", so if you have a scion that is 15" long, you should be able to get 4-5 grafts off of that scionwood.

STORING SCIONWOOD

Scionwood is relatively easy to store at home in the fridge (not the freezer), but you must make sure it is not being stored with any other fresh fruit or vegetables, such as apples. The fruit/vegetables will release ethylene gas that will prevent the scionwood from ever breaking dormancy. 

Wrapping Scion for Storage:

Outside of ensuring you are not storing your scionwood in the same fridge as fruit or vegetables, you should ensure it is staying moist, but not sopping wet. We store our scion in our cold-storage, wrapped in damp newspaper and then stored inside a bag to keep the moisture in. 

Our wrapping method:

• Wrap scion in dry newspaper or brown paper.
• Secure and label the paper bundle. 
• Dip each end of the wrapped package about 3-4” into our water bucket, leaving some dry paper to absorb remaining water.
• Set aside bundle for a few minutes to allow excess water to drain off.
• Once there's no water draining out of the bundle we tuck it into our plastic bag, label and store it.

Water will spread to dry areas of the paper, evening out the dampness throughout the parcel without over-wetting it. Don't worry if the water hasn't travelled up the dry paper, it will do so over the following hours, and if you're concerned you can double check and add some moisture as needed whenever you check on it (we recommend taking a weekly peek, especially if this is your first time storing scion).

Staying Organized During the Process

If you're working with several bundles of scion or a large quantity of different cultivars, make sure to mark the outside of the paper bundle before wetting it as well as keeping things marked inside it so that you can stay organized! We organize our scion alphabetically. For example, we make a bundle of all apple scion cultivars beginning with "A". If the bundles are small enough to combine, we bundle cultivars beginning with W, X, Y & Z together since there are fewer of them, while we often have two bundles of cultivars beginning with "M" and "N" because so many apple cultivars begin with those letters!

We add labels 3 times:

• When out in the orchards cutting the scion, each cultivar is bundled, tied and labelled.
• After wrapping in paper, the dry paper bundle is labelled before dipping in water.
• Once packaged in a plastic bag, the bag is marked on the outside so we know what's been stored inside it. 

While this is most important for a large quantity of different scions, it is also a good practice in general! 

Storing Purchased Scionwood 

If you purchase scionwood from us, you can store your scionwood in the packaging & bag it arrives to you in. You may wish to replace the damp newspaper with a fresh layer of your own dampened paper. If so, make sure it is damp but not sopping, you don't want to cause mold or rot!

How long can scion be stored?

When correctly stored, your scionwood can sit in storage for weeks to months, but we do recommend using your scion as soon as possible, and checking it regularly (weekly or bi-weekly is good) to confirm it is staying dormant, moist and mold-free in your fridge.  Keep in mind that many apple varieties have a soft, grey, hair-like substance that grows on and around the bark of young buds, and this can be mistaken for mold! Look at the photo to the right and you'll notice it in particular on the variety in the middle left, especially on the top ends. This is perfectly normal and should not concern you.

Dealing with Mold on Scions in Storage

If you do see mold when doing your weekly scion storage check, you can gently wipe it off. Often the molds we see are a greyish colour and looks sortof like thick dusty spider webbing between pieces of scion, and these molds wipe off with no damage to the bark of the scion. However, whenever we see white mold, we find it is a more clumped texture and shows visible bark damage when we wipe it away. You may try using a soft rag dampened with a 50% isopropyl alcohol : water mixture if a mold has gotten quite bad, however if there is damage on the bark when you wipe it away, your scion may already be irreparably damaged and the isopropyl water mixture may just stop it from spreading to other scions in your bundle. Usually if there is a mold issue there is also a moisture issue, and if you are seeing grey or easy-wiping mold, it is still wise to repackage your scion using dry paper and minimal moisture as outlined above.

You can reference this video for a more visual outline of the process if you are preparing to cut your own scionwood this spring and are a visual/auditory learner.

If you are looking into grafting from an old tree, you may want to reference this post about old trees, especially if it's a tree that isn't regularly maintained with spring or summer pruning. 

We wish you a happy time preparing for dormant grafting!