Bark is Slipping. Time for T-budding

Yes. Good luck, Bill

When the new scion shoot has about 2 ft growth and the bark turns from green to red/brown, the scion wood is ready. Then use the oldest well developed buds that are spaced out enough to be removed. As stated earlier that’s about 1/4 way up from the scion shoot base.

The older buds are better because they are more developed and will have higher energy reserves. That’s important to sustain the bud until it heals and develops new leaves.

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I have had a higher success rate with budding stone fruit rather than W/T. For apples/pears the W/T has worked well for me. I’m not sure why there is such a difference. Bill

Matt. Thanks again for posting about the versatile chip bud. The ones I recently grafted did as well as the t-buds but was much easier to do. When using small stock and scion wood chip budding is much easier. Bill

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Bill, I agree, It’s also easier on your fingers. No cuts or wounds!

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Bumping an old thread. We are having 4 days of 100F heat and more 90s to follow. I just had to try T-budding again. What do you do with failed attempts though? Is it ok to leave the cambium exposed or should I prune it out?

Right now forget T budding and try chip budding. You can’t successfully T bud unless the bark is slipping really well. That heat tells me it’s probably not.

It’s OK to leave an open wound on that small wood. It will heal over in time. If you want wrap with a rubber band. That might help it heal sooner.

Too late, already T-budded. The bark was slipping easily, though. I’ll wrap the wood for a couple of weeks.

Alright fruitnut, just because you help me out so much, I chip budded a couple of times. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Here’s a 2 week old graft. Does it look like getting healed over. I made a very messy cut, BTW. Also, I covered it back up but not too tight. Should I leave it open, though?

And here’s a 5 day old T bud. Is the bud about to pop?

Your top one has taken for sure. The petiole would be dead if not. The bottom looks good so far. I don’t think either will push this fall. Force them in spring by cutting off above the bud.

Nice going!!!

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My first chip bud looks like crap. The bottom part of the chip is not making contact with the host (you can see light sideways). But the top third part of the chip looks firmly set. Who knows, maybe it’ll drop off.

Even my T-buds look sloppy. The bottom part should have been cut shorter. These are Santa Rosa on Flavor Supreme.

If you don’t mind a little critique I’ll offer an opinion. It looks like the bud wasn’t firmly and completely underneath the bark of stock. That could be because the scion bud was too thick. Either cut it thinner or when scion and stock are about the same diameter it helps to remove the wood from the scion bud. That makes for a much better fit under the bark. This is for T budding. Then once the bud is firmly and completely under bark it needs to be tightly wrapped. For that I like budding rubbers ie rubber bands.

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Not at all Steve. I’m by no means an expert. :blush:

You are probably right, the bud is too thick. I’ll try a thinner slice next time. Thanks for all your guidance!

Its ok if they look like crap…as long as they grow.

I seem to always use chips that come from wood that is a little THINNER then the wood i’m placing them onto… I like that wood to be a little thicker because i can usually vary how wide i want that cut to be by how deep i’m taking my knife (if that makes any sense!). I try! to start thin and then put my chip up there and see how they line up…if no then i take a little more wood off until i get what i think will work.

If i see green (the bud i placed) after a few weeks or at least if the chip looks like its still alive, i’m happy. Things can happen over winter though…i’ve seen perfect buds not leaf out the following spring…so keep your fingers crossed and just see what happens come next season.

Here are a couple placed back in early Aug i looked at today…t.he 1st one looks fine…think its a peach and its on hybrid plum

Second might be ok (still shows signs of life) but isn’t as pretty… on apricot

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Finally got a good looking one…I think

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Yes, that looks perfect. Almost looks like it grew there normally.

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That looks great… Once spring gets here…cut everything above it off…

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T-bud looks neat on the inside!

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I don’t know how to T-bud, but I did some grafting today, instead.

I created a fruit salad tree. I grafted a Montmorrency Cherry, Sweet Bagel Flat Peach, Flavor Queen Pluot, Flavor Delight Aprium, Shakar Pareh Apricot, and my Proprietary F1 almond onto a Myrobalan plum seedling.

a Montmorrency Cherry onto a Myrobalan plum ?

in my option this combination is incompatible, am looking forward to the result

good luck.

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