I learned a good deal this last weekend about permaculture. One of the main things that I took away from the workshop is that permaculture is a system of design. One of my favorite techniques taught was how to graft plants. As a bit of trivia, Photo Curator John Szarkowski did a series of photographs on plant grafts. Grafting is essentially a method of plant propagation where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with another. For example we took two different kinds of apple shoots (scions) and grafted them onto a host tree (rootstock). If everything goes well, over time the apple tree will produce 3 different kinds of apples. Below is an abridged picture story of the grafting processes.
Scions from the previous year, recently removed from cold storage, Photo: DeHart
A grafting knife and angled cut, Photo: DeHart
Splitting the tree in a cleft graft, Photo: DeHart
Two Scions in the cleft, Photo: DeHart
Intern Charlie bandaging and bees waxing the finished graft, Photo: DeHart
The finished graft tagged. One will know in just a few weeks if the graft worked. Photo: DeHart
