It's me again! Asking hard qeustions.


For a rather way-out (but wholly legal!) project I need to graft this
year's growth of Alder (Alnus glutinosa) onto last year's growth of
the same. This is a difficult tree to graft, but last year I made
significant progress by fixing to the graft a 2 K Ohm resistor, fed
with 24 volts AC from a transformer (heat output = 0.2 Watts) and
wrapping with 3 turns of bubble-wrap which raised the temperature 10°C
above ambient and the grafts showed promise.

On 1 May in Newcastle, with 1-2 leaves showing at the terminal I tried
again.

My grafting advisor said that the scions were too small and they dried
out and ran out of food before they could take, so I thought I would
do something about them drying out and lacking food and

1) Some of them I wetted with Miracle-Gro + Interflora flower food,
just to stop them from drying out during handling.

2) Others I wrapped the graft with small, well-washed cotton strips
soaked with the above mixture

before wrapping with Parafilm and binding with rubber strips.

I thought I was doing right, but maybe I was doing wrong! This year I
did even worse! Has the use of Flower Food and /or the Miracle-Gro got
anything to do with it?

I think my grafting technique is probably OK. Any good ideas for next
year?

My own good idea, try when the catkins appear. End of February. hould
I look to other factors?

Michael Bell

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