Collecting Apple Scions by student Thea Sinha
Student Taylor Hartke captures a quick picture of the mountains while collecting scions from an unknown apple tree near one of the first homesteads in Eldorado Canyon.
On February 16, 2022, I accompanied Amy Dunbar-Wallis as we visited several apple trees in Boulder to collect scion for grafting. As it had recently snowed, in order to reach the trees, we had to walk through roughly 10-15 inches deep snow to reach the apple trees. It is very good to select trees for grafting in the winter because the trees are dormant. The process consisted of us driving up to the different locations. Next, we would walk through the snow to find all the apple trees we came to observe. Upon reaching the tree, we would determine the specific branches we wanted to break off to use for the grafting process. This is dictated by looking at branches and inspecting for last year’s growth. That is how you know it is the correct time to cut the branches off the tree. You must look for the fresh buds on the branches that are used for the grafting process later. After Professor Dunbar-Wallis picked the branches off the tree, she would have me tape them together, label them based on their tree tag number, and place them in paper bags based on that tag number. This process was repeated for all the apple trees that were visited that day, including roughly 5-6 different trees. This step in the process is very important because there is only a specific time they can be collected for grafting and they need to be appropriately selected and stored for several weeks before the official process of grafting can begin. I really enjoyed the experience of collecting scion because I was seeing the beginning process of grafting and I had the opportunity to learn a lot about how it works.