California Rare Fruit Growers – West LA Chapter
because the best things in life do grow on trees
You have to enter either Wants or Offers into the app to get the Exchange page to generate. And don’t forget to click Update at the bottom of the page after entering your Wants and/or Offers.
Thank you to the members who have already done so. The rest of you, get pruning! With this crazy January weather, my apples are already leafing out…
Photo by Olga Thelavart on Unsplash
With the ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases in LA County, and the fact that Culver City has closed its schools, the odds of our having a traditional scion exchange this year are starting to look slim. Fortunately, Fang has reactivated the Scion Exchange app he built last year so we can start posting our Offers and Wants now. If the rate of hospitalizations and deaths stays the same, we will use the format we did last year. IE folks can drop any OFFERS requested on Saturday February 12th at my driveway (labelled please!) . I will sort them and make them available for pickup by the WANTERS on Sunday February 13th. There is a place on the app to work out these exchanges ahead of time and please do so.
Of course, if COVID miraculously goes into retreat, we can do the exchange of Offers and Wants all in one morning on the outdoor patio of our beloved MutliPurpose Room. We would still need to be masked and respect social distancing.
This year, as was true last year, the Exchange will unfortunately only be open to the West LA Chapter. The link to Fang’s app has been sent to all current members. If you didn’t receive it, please let us know.
Also please stay tuned for updates. Circumstances can change on a daily basis.
Photo by Luke White on Unsplash
Yes, our biggest meeting of the year is just about upon us. And for 2020, we are again going to provide intimate, close-up-and-personal grafting demos by having four different experts each holding down his own table and teaching a variety of different grafts, the Cleft Graft, the Budding Graft, the Veneer Graft, etc.
The meeting will be in the MultiPurpose Room of the Culver City Veterans Memorial complex. The schedule will be as follows:
10 – 10:30 – Registration, affixing of the name tags, the Bringing In and Arranging of the Scion Wood (Click here to access a .pdf on how to collect and store scion wood from your orchard) Please place each variety in its own ziploc bag and label it! Also, if you intend to collect wood at our exchange, bring more ziplocs, and a Magic Marker to label your precious finds.
NOTE: Because of huanglongbing disease, NO CITRUS scion wood, fruit or roostock should be brought to the meeting or otherwise moved around the state.
10:30 – 11:00 The Grafting Demos (you are encouraged to watch each of them, but obviously you can camp for the duration in front of Fang Liu, for example, if you are trying to master the veneer graft)
11:00-11:30 – Members allowed to select scion wood
11:30 -noon – Non-members allowed to select scion wood
Alas, because our Chair is currently on medical leave, we will not be doing the hands-on grafting we did last year. We hope, however, to be able to add it again for 2021