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Old January 19, 2017   #14
b54red
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alabama
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One other thing about the DE. The coarse Optisorb is the one I use when potting the graft up. The reason it works best for that is it doesn't hold as much moisture or stay as wet as the finer grain stuff. I have used both for this purpose and the coarse grain allowed me much more success due to less moisture in the healing chamber. You want good humidity in the chamber but when it reaches a certain high level you get too much dripping. When I am opening the chamber to allow in air if I find the lid is fairly dry with little condensation I will spritz it again to help maintain the humidity in the chamber when it is closed.

One of the reasons I pot them into potting soil after they have healed and hardened a bit is that it is sometimes difficult to maintain a decent moisture level with the large grain DE and when it dries out too much it can actually suck moisture out of the plant and it doesn't support it well when it gets dry. Using the skewers before taking the plants outside can be critical because the plants will tend to fall over unless buried deep and that is something you don't want to do. You want as much root stock stem above the planting level as is possible so that when you set it out in the garden there is little if any chance of roots developing from the scion as that would negate all the hard work.

Bill
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