Past President of Organic Gardening Club of Ventura County, Bill Brandt, led apple grafting workshops at five high schools in early March. He went to Ventura High School, Santa Paula High School, Fillmore High School, and Camarillo High School in Ventura County, and Carpinteria High School in Santa Barbara county.

Bill had previously delivered 100 to 150 rootstocks to the schools, which the teachers had the students put in pots. Bill brought a team of four Grafting Teachers to each school where Bill demonstrated how to join a “Scion” (small piece of a twig) of a named variety of apple, to the small tree which is called a “Rootstock”. That joining is called a “Graft”. In a month or two, the grafts should “leaf out” and grow a stem which is future trunk of the tree. In three or four years, fruit will be anticipated.

The varieties of Apple included Hawaii, Gordon, Fuji, Dorsett Golden and Cripps Pink apple. The grafting team included Nina Brandt, Bill’s wife, Larry Filaski, member of OGCVC as well as Jim Ganser, Hugh Nelson, and Arnold Bernstein.

Later this spring, the students will have the opportunity to bring their apple tree home where the students will experience watching their creation become a fruit-bearing tree! The goal of the program is to instill in the students the importance of how nearly all fruit trees, roses etc. are propagated, as well as the joy of watching a fruit tree that you have grafted, grow into a new tree!