We have talked a bit about the black walnut seed. Strong roots but not so good to eat. There are many English walnut varites that are much better; such as chandler, vina, howard ..... So in order to get the varity he wants, the farmer grafts a piece of wood onto the black root stock.

I'm going to explain two different way's to graft. Why 2 way's? The farmer tells me it enables part of the trees to be done in August and the rest to be done in the spring.

First is patch budding.

With a double sided knife a piece of       Then a piece is cut from grafting wood

bark is cut awat from the root stock.       which has a bud on it.

The patch is placed on the root stock     and tied with a rubber band.

This is the end result - the tree heals itself and begins to grow from

the English variety that was patch budded on to it. Amazing!

Here is the lapbook that J & C are doing. They thought it up and took the whole day writing about the processes they learned. I am so proud!