One of the apple scions I have to graft this spring, unfortunately is no longer dormant. It’s probably at the green tip stage, many buds swelled with a bit of green showing.
Normally, now is the time I would bench graft dormant scions to dormant root stocks, wrapping the scion and the graft with parafilm and the graft with electrical tape. Leave them in the root cellar for 4 weeks, then pot them and let them grow out in the greenhouse a few weeks before moving them outside.
Just thought I would ask here, if the same process should be used with a scion that is starting to grow, or something else? I was thinking perhaps not putting parafilm around the whole scion but just the graft. Any suggestions from folks that have grafted a waking-up scion?
I would graft it onto rootstock that is already waking up. Last year I grafted pear scions collected after the mother tree was already in bloom and the vegetative buds were quite elongated and green. They were grafted onto actively growing stock with success.
With buds already waking up, extra care can still make them work! In your zone, I imagine your outdoor trees are not waking up yet. If they are then grafting these scions outdoors might work ok if your daily temps do not fall below freezing at night and your daily highs are in the 50s or higher. I would use parafilm, but stretch it before applying so that you do not damage the emerging buds. You can cover them twice with stretched buddy tape to keep them from desiccating before the graft union can callous. At 55F it will take 2-3 weeks for callousing to happen enough for nutrient transport across the graft union, So protecting the scion from desiccation is very important! I would soak the scions overnight in cold ice water the night before you plan to graft. Then gently dry by wrapping in a clean paper towel, air dry a bit then cover with parafilm everything but the but end where you will graft. Throw it back into the ice water until you have your tree cut made.
Once you graft it, cover it with a dark plastic to block all light for at least two weeks while callousing is happening. This will help ensure the buds do not break out before nutrient transport can occur!
Best of luck
Dennis
Kent, wa
Went outside yesterday to discover the sun had reached my root stock hoard. And some where in the act of breaking bud. I will try to graft them with some of the rooted Dorset Golds I have.
The further along they are in waking up the worse the odds of success will be in my experience.
If I have wood like that I search for the most dormant buds and aim for grafting those. I got some new trees this spring that were starting to wake up and as a backup I grafted them to other things. I found some dormant buds lower down close to the trunk.