2010 Spring Propagation Fair Lane Community College Cafeteria, Eugene, OR. 10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. Saturday, March 13.
	What is the 2010 Spring Propagation Fair? List of co-sponsors. Timetable of speakers. Directions to the event. How to design your own fruit tree. How can you support this event? Fruit varieties freely available at the Fair. What is the 2010 Spring Propagation Fair? The annual Spring Propagation Fair is a free, volunteer-driven event designed to support home orchardists, vegetable gardeners and native plant enthusiasts in and around the S. Willamette Valley. Hundreds of varieties of scions (fruit-tree cuttings) and vegetable seed, will be shared by local fruit enthusiasts and seed-savers at the Fair. Rootstocks will be available for a nominal fee. Grafting assistance will be provided. Feeling adventurous? Check out the grafting workshop at 1.00 p.m. Bring your own labeled cuttings and divisions of figs, grapes, berries and other fruits to share freely with others at the Fair; along with fresh seed, plants and divisions of all types of food crops and native plants. Ask questions of experienced local gardeners and a broad array of our bioregion’s foremost gardening education non-profits who will be tabling at the event. For a brief description of what’s involved in designing your own fruit trees, and how a scion-exchange helps make this possible; or to learn more about how you may support this free, participant-driven event, please see below. Bus service to LCC is available from Eugene Station. Free parking is available at LCC. Find directions to LCC here. Check out our event flyer here. Co-sponsors of the 2010 Spring Propagation Fair: Eugene Permaculture Guild. Seed Ambassadors Project. Lane Community Learning Garden. The OSU Extension Service in Lane County. Home Orchard Society. Victory Gardens For All. School Garden Project of Lane County. Huerto de la Famila. ECOS. Springfield Transitions Garden. Gardens Program of Food for Lane County. Urban Farm Program of the U of O. USDA Agricultural Research Service National Clonal Germplasm Repository, Corvallis. Native Gardening Awareness Program of the Native Plant Society of Oregon, Emerald Chapter. Lane County Beekeepers Association. Eugene Tree Foundation. The North American Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. Speakers at the 2010 Spring Propagation Fair: 11.00 a.m. Where to begin? From ground zero to feeding yourself out of a garden. Lauren Bilbao, a senior instructor at the Urban Farm Program of the University of Oregon. 12.00 p.m. Heirloom pear varieties for the S. Willamette Valley. Joseph Postman, curator of the USDA's 2000+ varieties pear germplasm collection in Corvallis, will discuss pear heirlooms from around the world, well-adapted to growing hereabouts. (Scions from several of the difficult-to-find varieties he will be discussing, will be available at the exchange.) 1.00 p.m. Social permaculture: growing our food with our neighbors. A panel discussion by local residents discussing the current state of collaborative, neighborhood-based approaches to growing food. Jan Spencer (River Road Neighbors), Charlotte Anthony (Victory Gardens for All), Aleta Miller (Environmental Center of Sustainability), Anne Donohue (Friendly Neighbors). 2.00 p.m. Locally-adapted vegetables: What are they and why do they work so well? Andrew Still and Sarah Kleeger of the Seed Ambassadors Project and Adaptive Seeds. 3.00 p.m. Incorporating native plants into food gardens. Why and how? With Devon Bonady of the Lane Community College Learning Garden and Fern Hill Nursery; and Brian Basor, President, Emerald Chapter, Native Plant Society of Oregon. Designing your own fruit tree: Most fruit trees are actually two-trees-joined-in-one - just above their root collars you will often notice a swollen union or ‘graft’ where a ‘scion’ (a cutting of a fruit variety such as a ‘Gravenstein’ apple or ‘Bing’ cherry) was originally joined or ‘grafted’ onto a type of tree called a rootstock. We use rootstocks because they help us determine, among other behaviors, the size of a mature tree growing on top of them - anything from 4’ to 50’ depending on the rootstock selected. A scion exchange provides an opportunity to design these two-in-one trees, by making a wide variety of common and rare fruit tree varieties and rootstocks available to mix-and-match with. Only the tiniest fraction of scion and rootstock combinations made available at this Propagation Fair are available from commercial fruit tree nurseries. How can you join in supporting this free, participant-driven Propagation Fair? Bring labeled cuttings and divisions of figs, grapes, berries and other fruits to share freely with others at the Propagation Fair; along with fresh seed, plants and divisions of food crops and native plants. Although devoted local fruit enthusiasts are already gathering scion (fruit tree cuttings) to bring to the event to share freely with others, we are encouraging everyone able and willing to harvest scion to join the collection effort. The more, the merrier. Cutting and storing scion is a simple task. Here are a few pointers: Be very careful with ID and labeling - collect from trees that have fruited already so the variety is known. Preferably, cut scion about the diameter of a lead pencil, to 12” lengths, although shorter pieces are fine. ’Pruning cuttings’ often fit the bill perfectly. Tightly tie or rubber-band a dozen or so healthy cuttings in a clearly-labeled bundle. Collecting scion is time-sensitive. Scion wood needs to be cut before the buds have very visibly begun swelling, then kept cool until it is grafted onto rootstock in the spring, ‘when the sap is rising’. Late-January-early-February sees the end of our ‘dormancy collection window’ for stone-fruit such as plums and cherries. Asian and European pears quickly follow, then apples. Some varieties ‘bud out’ earlier than others. Vigorous shoots are best but avoid collecting from suckers or water-sprouts (these shoots, which grow vertically from the base of the tree or vertically from lateral branches, are slowest to bear fruit). Collect first-year wood (last year’s growth) preferably from laterals. Next-favored are the terminal shoots at the top of the tree. Once collected, don’t let the scion dry out. Experienced hands will tend to label each variety clearly, place it in a moist (not saturated) medium such as paper towels or old cloth, and wrap in plastic. (The plastic bags the newspaper comes in work well. Double the bag because one will often have a hole in it.) Place in the refrigerator at about 34° to 38° until grafting time: keeping the scion cool keeps it dormant; keeping it damp, keeps it fresh. Further questions about scion collection? Google: “Penhallegon scion” or call Nick at 541-284-3703.
	Last updated: March 7, 2010