I never dip them in anything. I just put them in a bag in the fridge, sometimes wrapped in a damp paper towel or cloth. I usually collect apple and pear scions in Feb. or March and then graft in April.

I don't dip them either. I prefer to wrap scions in damp newspaper. The soy based inks are anti fungal.

Thats interesting, Eric. I usually just pull them out and rinse and brush with a soft brush as soon as I see any mold, then it doesn't come back until I am ready to graft. But the copper sounds like a good idea. It may be particularly useful for rooting, there things are in warm spots and can mold and rot before the rooting takes off.

Scott

Up here in Vermont it doesn't really get warm until the end of May. The leaves come out the 2nd week of May, but the trees are not really growing until the end of May. But the buds start to swell during short warm periods in March and April, so if I want tight buds at grafting I have to pick them near the end of Feb, meaning I have to store them for 3 months. That's why I have a fungus issue.

Eric

My experience is that if the buds aren't showing green they do fine and the later I harvest wood the better off they do as long as they aren't already showing green. I usually collect all my wood in March, some of it in late March, warm spells or not.

Last year I top worked some apple trees in late March just to see what would happen. The temps got down into the single digits, but all the grafts did fine.

I store mine in straight newspaper...cut late march or the same time I tap maple trees. I added a bunch of fruiting wood with great results. I got large nice fruit in the first year grafts added to a mature crabapple. my neighbors thought I was nuts so I'm glad it worked so well . I hope second years fruit is bigger and better..... without over doing it.