Yes, our biggest meeting of the year is just about upon us. And for 2019, we are finally providing what has long been requested: a chance for you yourself to take a shot at grafting under the eyes of an expert.
We are also 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:
9:30-10 – Registration, waiver signing, 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.
10-10:30 – 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)
10:30-11 – Members allowed to select scion wood
11-11:30 – Non-members allowed to select scion wood
11:30-noon Hands on Grafting Classes with our Experts
Note: while we will have knives, parafilm and grafting tape on hand, we will not necessarily have enough rootstock and matching scion wood for all comers to take home an actual grafted tree. The classes are designed to teach you the craft, period. Odds are we will have a lot of avocado rootstock and a lot of pear scion wood. Despite the fact that avocados are sometimes referred to as Alligator Pears, this WILL NOT work. Plus, your beautiful graft may be lopped off and replaced by the next student.
If you have a rootstock and scion wood of your own, however, that you want to learn to “marry” for life, feel free to bring ’em.