Before choosing the budwood source for the job we should appraise what sources are available and what  requirements have to be met.

You need to consider whether there is a need to know the virus status of the wood you intend to use, also that of your mother vines.

In recent times more and more virus free wood is being released by vine improvement societies and also imported by private operators such as Binjara (Chalmers Italian Varieties and others), Yalumba etc.

Vine improvement societies have also made improvements to some old varieties like removing viruses from them.

Most of these operations will also treat your wood with fungicide etc, which is good.

D I Y

If we choose to cut wood ourselves from another source, we request it to be about pencil thick and straight (picture).

It then needs to be soaked for 6-10 hours in water preferably containing some sort of fungicide treatment.

If you use a commercial product, follow the label. We use 4ppm calcium hypochlorite (a swimming pool cleaner).

It then needs to be put into an airtight bag and stored at 1-4 degC.

It can also be wrapped in wet newspaper if you like just to make sure it doesn’t dry out or sharp ends perforate your bag.

Care must be taken to ensure that the cuttings do not freeze.

If possible the wood should be cut mid-winter. Buds which are beginning to shoot are much harder to store successfully.

PLEASE NOTE --

We avoid using heat treated wood at all times unless it is from a trusted source as in the past it has proved to be unreliable.