Saving dormant scion for chip budding

General Fruit Growing
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I have a terrible success rate for bench grafting stone fruit. Usually, I’m able to save the rootstock and some of my stocks have been abused by my attempts 3 or more times. I’m starting another bunch of new stocks from seed (Manchurian apricots, Myro, American plum, and mahaleb), I like to see my stocks survive a winter before use. I’ve tried the heat tube (with good results) but the scions didn’t all thrive in the nursery. It seems like summer bud grafting is the way to go, but to get all the awesome varieties I’d need to get dormant wood scions and hold them until summer.

So, I’m looking for advice on how this works, and I got a couple of questions.

  1. Is this just a bad idea?

  2. If I chip bud a stock when should I do it?

  3. Am I trying to keep the bud dormant for the first year?

  4. I was thinking I could bud graft low on the stock and if it is below other dormant buds it would not start growing no matter if it is spring or summer, until I cut off the top.

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I’m sure others with many more years of experience will comment, but for several years I have had limited success with stone fruits. Some plums took, but virtually no apricots, nectarines, or peaches. This summer I got scions from Bob Purvis and chip-budded onto rootstock or existing trees in late August. I had over 95% success with all types of stone fruit, and that was in the field, which I generally find a bit clumsier than bench-grafting. All the buds are dormant, and I will prune back to just above the bud in the spring. In most cases I did two chip buds per branch or rootstock in case one failed.

I think for future stone fruit grafts I will grow the rootstock over the summer, chip bud graft with summer scions in late summer, and plant out the following spring.

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My very limited experience with stone fruits: plums pretty easy, apricots not. But the few 'cots I did have take were initially chips, and later on a few buds. I seemed to have t

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Do you need summer wood to chip/bud graft or would scions from dormant wood work?

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I’ve never tried to save winter scions until summer, but my guess would be it could work if you have good storage conditions for the scions and don’t get mold or rot problems.