That’s awesome.
Dax
Yes you’ve got it correct. Right where the wire goes over that branch union will be the weak point. That’s because there will be bark trapped below the wire making for a weak union. It’s too late to pull the branch down and open up the union. So to assure that the branch doesn’t break out it either needs to be kept small and short or it could be tied off to the other side of the tree. The OP wants a big branch so it should be tied to a major limb on the opposite side of the tree.
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How does everyone prep their scions before grafting? Do you put them in a glass of water to hydrate them?
@Susu I’ve never heard of that, sounds like a bad idea to me, unless scions are in really bad shape. Did you read that somewhere? Just sterilize your grafting knife, pruners and have at it. I use straight rubbing alcohol from drugstore. Leave it on the blade for one minute before wiping off with paper towel. Good luck. And before I start grafting I always cut off a quarter to half inch of the bottom end of the scion as it may have dried out so you cut it back just a bit to get to fresh bright green wood. Don’t do this step ahead of time- do at the last second just before you make your grafting cut on the scion.
Update: apparently soaking is standard practice for dry scions. A new concept to me.
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It seems that Maine is way behind most folks on this list; still about 50% snow cover in the woods and the peepers haven’t started yet. But this week is forecast warm and we are aiming to plant out three weeks from now, so I figured it was high time to do my benchgrafting. I made about 30 trees, mostly various cider varieties, and about half of them interstems, using the skillcult-recommended all-at-once method, as discussed here on a previous thread a couple months back. This is my first attempt at interstems; I made B118/B9s and M111/G935s according to the vigor of the scion as best I could estimate from online sources pointed out by the helpful folks here. I used parafilm on the entire stems for the first time; in the past I have just dabbed the tips with tree-kote. I also tried a couple of them as clefts where the diameter mismatch was severe - haven’t used that technique before but seemed straightforward. I am interested to try wedge grafting out in the woods because the rind grafts I’ve been doing often get ripped off by ice or porcupines.
Using the leftover roots from the interstems I grafted a bunch of new varieties I picked up at the MOFGA swap, including two my friends picked for the names: Newt Grindle and Zabergau Reinette. The rootstocks were kind of short as I was trying to get at least 10" of interstem for the dwarfing effect. I suppose I should grow out a couple of the dwarf rootstocks as trees, so as to be able to harvest interstems from them instead of having to buy a bundle of rootstock - assuming that the interstem thing works out. ’
When I was done I had a pile of foot-long B118 and M111 sticks sitting there, and for giggles I dug out some old rooting hormone, dipped the butts, and stuck them in damp sawdust. The whole mess is in the basement under our mudroom where it’s around 50F; I’ll leave them there for a couple of weeks and see how they look, unless folks here suggest treating them otherwise?
Here’s what the kitchen floor looked like when I was done:
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Thanks. I was just wondering. I guess no need 
Working on Frankenapple, ran out of scion wood - some of the Fuji was too dried-up to use
Just finished my Apple grafts. I couldn’t get all the varieties I had in. Couldn’t get any back up grafts for the ones I did either. Young tree and not many branches to graft on to. Hoping that every one is right and Apple is easy to graft and all my grafts take without any need for backup 
Like that’ll happen!
There was a discussion of hydrating scions here not long ago.
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I recall that. What concerns me is the absence of green when I cut the wood
Thanks Scott. I missed that whole discussion.
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The graft on this rootstock failed last year. Did not want to lose a years worth of growth. I added on 5 varieties of pears.
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Did a lot of grafting today. Mostly pears and apples but found some Shiro scions I had forgotten about. Also through on some peach grafts as we are expecting temps in the 70s for the next 5 days or so. If they don’t take I’ll try again in 3-4 weeks.
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Now that I think I’ve gotten past all my stupid beginner mistakes (using duct tape, not wrapping the scion in addition to the graft point), I’ve put together two frankentrees.
First is a bunch of random pear scion on a large callery I have handy. Spalding, Orient (source said it was an Asian Pear, but my research says it’s actually Euro), something else Euro.
Much more franktree-ish: I grafted some medlar and quince (aromatnaya and kuganskaya) onto my landscape’s hawthorn tree. Very interested to see how that turns out. So far, most of them are at least pushing buds.
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Is wrapping the entire scion common practice? I did a bunch of apples yesterday only wrapped the graft union. I sealed the end of the scion if it was cut, but I didn’t wrap the entire scion.
Should I?
I like to wrap the whole scion but I’ve had good success with apples without wrapping.
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Those are really neat photos of your chip bud. Not sure why, but I just think chip budding is a super cool process that I have got to learn to do! Thanks for making it look even more fun.
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Is pretty common practice, I think, but not absolutely essential. The point is to do everything you can to prevent dessication of the scion prior to the graft union taking. Waxing and painting are other ways.
Sometimes it’s helpful to build a little foil tent around the graft to shield it from intense sun, which bake a scion.
Thanks! I guess the thing I learned is don’t give up and be patient. I’m certainly going to try it again this summer.
I was watching a video about grafting and I saw a part that got my attention. I don’t know if I had seen or heard this part so I had a question. This is a picture of a cleft graft, you can see where I have circled an area that the video was talking about. The instructor said, you must always leave this on a graft. If you do NOT, the graft will not take.
Can someone clarify this for me? I don’t know that I have had a failure when not leaving this white part exposed.
Thanks
