I wish i had found this forum sooner. You guys are a great source of info. I live in central Pennsylvania, and we have had an unusually warm March. Last i heard, we are at 12 days so far this month above 70 degrees. The apple trees are already in the green tip stage. I do not have any more scion wood that is still dormant, so i guess i will have to wait till next year to gather more scion. Can i make my own rootstock from the suckers on my mom's tree? This is a quote i read on another web site. "The rootstock is actually a sucker that sprouted from a host tree, and sawdust is mounded up against it which causes the young trunk to sprout roots." I know there are suckers at the base of her tree- will the suckers be dwarf? And then i can bench graft next year.

These are some helpful ideas. I hadn't considered bridge graffting, I suppose that would effectively lower the graft so that I wouldn't have to bury so deep, also the younger graft wood might root more effectively than the exisitng trunk which is probobly 4-5 years old. I guess I could also try air layering and then in-grafting that rooted stock next year...I have only done simple whip graft on branch ends before, so perhaps this is an opportunity to play with some new techniques. To Konrad's point of doing full burial next year I was also thinking of setting the tree deeply but not filling the hole past several inches above present soil line on tree, then encasing the trunk in 6-8"diameter cardboard tube 12-14"inches up and filling that with soil to try and get some scion rooting this summer. Come fall, remove the tube and backfill the hole completely. It leaves two questions: -how effectivelty will a 1" diameter cherry trunk scion root? Is there anything i can do to encourage it...cut/abrade and apply rooting powder? -even with well drained soil would such a "pit planting" get waterlogged? Or I could just sink the darn things deep and hope for the best.....which poses a last question...am I just wasting these things trying to do all this and would it be better to plant them horizontal and generate future stock to work with? What has been people's experience with the actual cold hardiness of the mazzard root stock? thnaks for input

There are quite a few people who dedicate their lives to finding old apples. Tom Burford, Tom Brown, Lee Calhoun, and others I can't think of now. Orange Pippin has a lot of information on apples and might be a place to start: http://www.orangepippin.com/varietyindex.aspx If you can't narrow it down you might want to contact one of the professional apple hunters. I did a quick search on Google and found several interesting sites. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/345738559/the-lost-apple-project http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/rare-heritage-apples-zb01302zrob.aspx#axzz3Dz502q3a http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/04/heritage-apples-john-bunker-maine Here is a link that might be useful: The Search for

Seng, You can order budwood from the Citrus Clonal Protection Program for a nominal cost. They have Chandler, Reinking, Sarawak, Mato Buntan, Kao Pan & Thong Dee pummelo budwood (scions) available 3 times a year. The next cutting is June 12, 2013. They also have a lot of information about Huanglongbing & Asian Citrus Physllid. All their budwood is certified HLB & other known pathogens free. There are strict rules that they explain about using & transferring budwood. You can get started here: http://ccpp.ucr.edu/index.html Be warned, you do NOT want to break the rules. Some nitwits in the LA area imported some HLB infected budwood from Asia a few years ago. The USDA & CDFA chopped down their trees & fined them. Not so terrible. The lawyers with the California citrus growers then went after them & destroyed their lives. Citrus growing in California is a multi-billion dollar industry. They have no mercy for anyone who might harm the industry however innocently. The regulations are not so difficult to learn & follow. Be smart. Good luck with the pummelos!