At least one more month. You can leave it longer if it does not constrict the branch.
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Great information. I will be trying my luck at some grafting next year. I need all the useful information I can get. TY everyone that posted something here. We all can learn something from the feedback, good or bad, about grafting.
First time Bench Grafting 4 “Thomas” Black Walnut scions on native BW today, some pluots on native A. Plum and some Geraldi on Dwarf mulberry. Hopeful!!
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I have wanted to have pine nuts and the only tree that may grow in my cold climate would be Korean pine. Since I did not want to buy a whole tree that may freeze I bought a couple of scions. I can put them on Lodgepole pine and I may have a white pine too. Anyway, what graft would you use? I watched several U-tube videos and they used wedge and banana. Would one be better than the other? Also, they did the top, but would it be okay to do some side branches too? And do the graft when the new needles start to grow?
Wow, I haven’t seen anything on this forum about grafting conifers. Maybe try starting a new thread so the topic could get the attention someone who might have some experience at this?
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I do not want to count my chickens before they hatch, but the early indication is that I was 6 for 6 on my first attempt apple grafting. I bench grafted alkmene, pomme gris (2), chieftain, and newtown pippin (2) to M7 rootstock. Five of the 6 grafts were W&T bench grafts and one was a field (cleft) graft on an M7 rootstock that I planted last year. I used black electric tape and toilet bowl wax to secure and seal the grafts, respectively.
A question I have… the alkmene graft has huge round buds, that look like they might have flower buds inside. Does flowering on new grafts happen very often? If it does flower, I will pinch them off.
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Yes there can be blossom buds on the scion wood as it is often cut from mature trees, I pinch them off
So I did my first grafts and all seemed to go well. How do I know if they worked. Several have buds pushing through the paraffin. Does this mean they were definitely successful or could that just be the stored up energy from the scion trying to grow. I have to avoid the temptation of cutting the vinyl tape already to peak at the graft.
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Leave 'em be, Jim!
If they’re living on stored energy they’ll start to fail in just a few days, ad then you’ll know. Pretend it’s Christmas …
And definitely, do leave the wrap on for the better part of the season- several weeks, at least.
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I will leave them be. thanks.
I’m the guy that will dig into the soil to peek at my seeds when they don’t come up when they should. One would think I would have better patients being a gardener.
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But I bet you don’t pull up rooting cuttings to see if they got roots. Guess who does that 
I got zero patience too!
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I ruined several grafts not long after I started grafting due to mangling them while trying to peek. Lesson (eventually) learned…
This year I did a different stupid thing, I had a chip bud from last fall and I got the bud sprout mixed up with a stock sprout and rubbed off the wrong one … oops! I rarely chip bud and next time will add a big arrow pointing to the bud so I don’t do that one again…
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Scott, a few years ago I shifted trades and had to learn a new skillset. My motto was “a new and better mistake everyday,” and believe me, I did my best to live up to it for a while!
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It is just so interesting how the tree will accept (hopefully) a new branch. Goes against what people think would happen. To be able to peek at the healing and see what is going on would be so cool.
Susu, I have pulled up root cuttings only to see new roots and then curse at myself for the lack of patience. I was out last week yanking up some of the ugly onion seedlings to see what was happening under the soil. There were new roots so I jammed them back in and said sorry.
Scott, you have so much going on it can’t be surprising when you make one mistake. I starting journaling my orchard experience this year so hopefully I can remember what and when I should do things next year. Every year I would tell myself, “This is important enough that I will remember it one year from now” and sure enough I never do.
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I graft with black electric tape and my first year I took the tape off way too soon so I could see how the graft had healed.
I’ve had fail grafts with leaf unfurling last for over 2 weeks (after breaking through the paraffin) before browning. There was absolutely no graft callousing upon later inspection. This was using a 5 -6 inch scion so I imagine there was a good bit of stored energy in this scion and I gave these grafts the most TLC possible.
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