I am just a farmer and these are just my thoughts:
If you ask me the mother on her own roots is best. cuttings and suckers
better and grafts good. Cuttings you don't get that nice tap root . I
don't think trans-genetic or taking a gene from anywhere in the gene pool
and mixing up all the plants and animals together is the same at all. To
whom it may concerned Grafting is in my Bible. I know God has no place in
sustainable ag. and a God argument will get flamed here but when He talks
about grafts I pay attention as I may be a graft myself and know as one
just grafted on, life is not easy for a graft. I think their is a lot of
difference between grafting like kinds and mixing unlike kinds. I love my
seedlings that turn out good and I plant seedlings all the time and pray
yet I don't feel grafts are bad just not as good. I had about 20 mangoes
growing good here for over 10 years and then had a freeze here and they all
died below the graft so now I am planting seedlings from polyembroic plants
and feel the seedling is much better than the grafted trees I had before.
I feel grafts are organic as you are just matching cambium layers and not
injecting a gene from a fish or a pig into a bean . That can never happen
in nature. I plant banana from slips and have seen seeded bananas and have
had them growing here . it is funny to eat a banana and find little hard
black seeds yet give me a good slip any day. Same with pineapple. I used
to graft trees and use grafted trees to make money and pay bills and also I
take the seed from a grafted tree and plant it so my grafted trees are also
giving me seed stock. We know what grafting does in the ecology so don't
let these gene manipulation people manipulating folks tell you their
wickness is the same a grafting or cuttings as they are injecting unlike
genes into unlike life forms. This will never happen in nature. I feel
more research into good seedlings is good and want to learn from my friends
here how to better my chances of getting good seedlings going . As the
grafted trees pay the bills I am developing a good seedling collection. I
could not do it with out good grafted trees and you might say the grafted
trees sustain the place until the seedlings take over. If you want to tell
me seedlings are better than grafts I will agree but to tell me grafts are
not organic you loose me on that one, And if you try and tell me grafts are
the same as mixing up life on earth with unlike kinds made in the lab you
will get an argument from me . so my vote a good seedling is best a good
cutting or slip is better and a graft is good. good better best never let
it rest till the good get better and the better gets best.
As far as taste goes . I have tasted great fruit from grafted trees that
taste great. I have a tree growing I got from a man whose father brought
the seed with him over from Grease many many years ago and I planted the
seed and the fruit I got was not even close to his so I grafted a scion
from his tree onto the seedling and the peach is the tastiest around . If
you want to take the grafting tool away from organic growers you better
have a good reason and I have not heard a good reason why grafting is not
organic yet? you take a scion and match cambium layers of like kinds and
pray what is not organic about that?
Sals@rain.org
check out an organic growers homepage at:
<http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html>http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
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