Part 36 (1/2)

MR. BERNATH: Yes, same way with hickories and oaks.

MR. WEBER: What sort of shading element do you use? Anything real tight, or how?

MR. BERNATH: Yes, air tight. The grafting case has got to be air tight.

MR. WEBER: The shade?

MR. BERNATH: Oh, any kind of cloth, cheesecloth, muslin. I know that will do it.

MR. CHASE: Whitewash?

MR. BERNATH: That's all right, too. If you use whitewash, I would recommend using white lead with gasoline and just spray it on. That will help a lot, but I generally use a cloth for shade.

MR. O'ROURKE: Why do you place the scions so that the bud is on the inside?

MR. BERNATH: It makes a straighter tree. The other way it's inclined to grow out this way (indicating). It grows toward the stock, makes a straighter tree.

MR. STOKE: I think there is one more advantage there. On the edge next to the stock you get a better contact than you do on that lip on the outside, and it leads more directly into the bud.

DR. CRANE: Less danger, too, that that bud will rub off.

MR. BERNATH: Keep them shaded, but only 50 per cent shade. And then in about two weeks you take the shade off, let the sun s.h.i.+ne on it. It doesn't hurt--over the gla.s.s. And then you take these pots when danger of frost is over, plant them out, in nursery rows, or, if you want to put them in permanent places, it's perfectly all right. Take this, put your finger under like that (demonstrating), give her a tap, and the ball comes out of the pot in your hand. And if it's permanent, plant it down to here; cover the union.

MR. WEBER: And the scion eventually forms its own root?

MR. BERNATH: It will. You will find that pot will be filled up with fibrous root.

MR. SZEGO: When do you take the tape off?

MR. BERNATH: Don't take it off at all. It will decay.

MR. MILLER: But the same graft can't be used outside without grafting wax, can it?

MR. BERNATH: Yes, you have to wax outside. That's right, you have to use wax. Otherwise the grafting method is the same for top-working.

MR. MILLER: Because in there you have it air tight. Outside you have to wax.

MR. BERNATH: You can't do it without wax, not outside. But budding you can do without wax outside.

This is a whole plant right here. That's a whole plant root, and this is right in this four-inch pot. That tap root is cut away and all the lateral roots, finer roots, put right in there and put in soil like any transplanted plant.

DR. ROHBACHER: When do you put that stock in the house?

MR. BERNATH: If you want to start work in January, towards the end of December after the understock has had the rest period. You can store them, unless you are in a place where you don't get much frost in your ground.

DR. ROHBACHER: You have to dig those up in the fall?

MR. BERNATH: You have to dig these up about three weeks before you want to graft. There is another point I should have been wide awake enough to tell you in the beginning: when you put these in the bench put them in peat moss like that, because otherwise it would be next to impossible to keep those plants moist enough.

MR. WEBER: That's standing upright.