You can keep the bark slipping for months with water and fertilizer, water mainly. Pour it on for two weeks before you want to bud.
Bark doesn’t need to slip for chip budding. You could chip bud now but if the stock isn’t growing you will have a more difficult time forcing the scion bud to grow.
The chip-bud is your most versatile graft option with regards to timing. You can do it any time of year except when putting a chip from non-dormant budwood onto dormant understock (in this case, the chip-bud can dry out and die before the rootstock wakes up.
You might find the following videos from Kevin Hauser helpful. I sure did. (Kevin is “Applenut” on this forum):
It might be useful to start a topic on chip-budding. I don’t think that someone reading the topic titles would go to the title on T-budding to learn about chip-budding.
Thanks for getting this topic started. Although I have done a few t-buds before there is much for me to learn. I got started about 2 weeks ago when I was given a small limb of Olympic pear for scion wood. The buds were not as well developed as I would like but I budded about 8 in hopes that at least 1 or 2 would make it. Bill
Matt. Versatility in grafting is always good. Recently I added both t-buds and some chip-buds. It will be interesting to start seeing my comparative take rate. Chip buds will be a regular option for me now. Sometimes I only have small stock and scion wood and the few of these that I just did went on well with just parafilm. Thanks Bill
Murky,
Mine are mature buds from the lower part of this years growth. The stem at that point is pencil thickness or more. It’s not the newest growth, more near the bottom of this year’s growth. Not the bottom ones, which are too close together. More like 1/4 up the stem.
In T budding, can the bud come from a shoot that just emerged this spring or does the bud need to be from last year’s wood? In other words, how old does the bud need to be?
Hambone. The ones that I’m t-budding now are the more mature buds from this years wood. After about 2-3 weeks I cut back to the bud to force the new bud to grow (June Budding). You can also wait until spring to force the bud. Hope this helps, Bill
I’m not sure about the dark wood question but I just look for this seasons buds that are well developed regardless of how dark they are. Seems to work well. Bill
I’ve had the best luck T-budding with bud wood from current year onto growth from current year. This was a failed w&t graft from Feb. You can see that it put out two new shoots. I T-budded these on May 1 and you can see how much growth it already has.
How do you decide when the dormant bud is developed enough to grow if it is T-budded? Or is there a general rule about harvesting bud wood in terms of how long from initial spring green up? I often wonder if I am trying to use budwood that doesnt have developed enough dormant buds. On the otherhand is that even really a factor? Shouldnt a dormant bud continue to develop no matter its state when grafted?