Monthly Tip

When pruning dormant fruit trees, you may want to save cuttings (scions) for later grafting onto other fruit trees.  Grafting is a technique that allows you to have multiple varieties of compatible fruit on one tree and is a great space saver. Fruit trees can have new varieties grafted to them when they are dormant in January and February.

Scions are available in January at the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) scion exchange. Their January event also includes training classes. Check the CRFG - Santa Clara blog for the date.

More information on grafting can be found at:

- Grafting and Budding on the UC Home Orchard website
- Grafting Dormant Deciduous Fruit Scions at the California Rare Fruit Growers website
- Budding and Grafting Demystified from the UCCE web site