T-budding/Chip Budding timing

[yoderjac]

Folks,

One of the GRIN scion I ordered turned out only to be available as bud sticks. I have a bunch of trees on the deck that either were not chip budded or the budding failed (likely cause they were so young). I just got an email the bud sticks are on their way. What is the typical timing for budding seedlings in zone 7a? Anything I should watch out for with these young still containerized seedlings? I will likely over winter them in a cold room.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Neahawg]

Just make sure they have been watered we and as long as the bark slips well you should be able to tbud when they come in.

 

[yoderjac]

They have plenty of water. Any advantage to chip budding over T-Budding with these? My experience with budding has been limited. A couple years ago, I planted seedlings in the fall and grafted them the following spring. Only one took. I tried my first T-budding with those that failed and had zero success with that. Both the provider of the bud sticks and myself were inexperienced and the bud sticks may have been taken too early. Also, I used the same freezer tape that works well for W&T grafts which did not do well with T-buds. Whatever the cause I had no success with T-budding so far.

This spring I pushed the envelope and tried chip budding from dormant scions on to very young seedlings still in containers. I had a few of them take and do well but my success rate was low. I blame most of this on how tiny the seedlings were and my poor technique but at least I had some success.

This will be with these same seedlings (the ones that didn't take), but they have had a couple more months of summer to grow.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[chickenlittle]

As long as the bark slips, you should be fine for t-budding. For me in zone 5 or 6, I get from no growth to a few inches. I prefer a healthy, healed bud with no growth so I can't damage it before spring or get chewed off. That might be your biggest worry with moving containers is beaking off the new growth. I used buddy tape last year and it was superior to pvc tape I used before. No need to remove so I did not have to guess when the bud was healed. I only had a handful of stocks that didn't get at least one take this spring. Those were all older, larger diameter stocks.

I've not done chip budding yet but you should be able to chip bud if you are more comfortable with that technique.

 

[James P. Bipps]

Chicken little,

Are you covering the bud completely with the buddy tape? I never have, but it seems that I read somewhere where someone had better success by doing that. Inverted Ts also appear to be better.

 

[chickenlittle]

I think you want one or two wraps of buddy tape over the bud. More wraps above and below the bud to secure the T flaps over the bud. The buddy tape I bought was 1" wide and perforated to tear off about a 3" long strip. I had trouble getting the bud graft done with 1 piece , usually 2 or 3 but I got better at getting it to stretch without breaking as I went along. If you have too many wraps over the bud, it will have trouble pushing through the tape. I did remove tape on many of my budgrafts this spring as I was pruning.

I have not done any inverted Ts but I've read about it. I think I saw it recommended for citrus trees and in very wet climates. For rainy climates, the idea was that water would drain out of the T instead of pooling.

All this talk got me looking through my nursery on my day off. Found 9 apple stocks I can T bud this afternoon.

 

[Spur]

I had success with both chip budding and t budding last year. My tip is to not listen to the youtube videos on wrapping above and below the bud. If you choose chip budding do this

1. Snip off the budwood you want and head for the kitchen table and put a glass of water close to your setup
2. Pick the bud/s you want and make a slice a half inch below the bud about half way through the wood
3. Make a slice a half inch above the bud, grip the wood, and draw your knife towards you, when the knif gets to the other incision, the bud will fall
4. Grasp the bud and face the cambium up, take the tip of your blade and work the outside edge/cambium loose from the wood, when the inside wood breaks loose, pull the wood out and you are left with the bud with a lot of bright green cambium
5. Immediately put the bud in the water
6. Repeat until you get all of your buds cut
7. Put the glass in the fridge over night.
8. In the morning before bright morning sun, go out to your rootstock with your knife, buddingtape, and your snips
9. Evaluate where you want to graft and snip any and all limbs that may interfere with your taping and slice off a piece of tape about 10 inches
10. Make a chipping cut the size of a bud you have in the cup onyour rootstock
11. Immeditaely pull out the bud you want and stick it over the chip
12. Hold the bud in your left hand, grab the tape with your left thumb and pointer finger tips hold the tape in place while holding the bud in place with the same fingers
13. Start to wrap the tape starting below the bud graft a couple inches, then wrap the whole bud making sure the bud does not shift while wrapping, making sure you tape at least an inch above the graftwith a tight seal then work your way back down to the bottom again all while holding the bud in place.
14. Use the entire tape by going up and down the bud until you reach the end of the tape. When you reach the end, pull the tape tight and it stretches and makes a tight seal
15. Walk away until spring!

Hopethat helps. I'll be grafting some tomorrow if you want to facetime me and watch.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks for the tips folks! I don't have facetime but if you record anything, please post it. Do you typically remove the rootstock above the bud? When I tried chip budding this spring with dormant scions, I seemed to have better success with trees that I removed the rootstock above the bud. This didn't always work but that may be because the rootstock was so young. It seemed that I had few take where I left much root stock. However, where I did leave root stock and the chip buds did not take, the seedling kept growing so I can try again.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Spur]

I don't think the rootstock age has anything to do with it honestly. I grafted a honeycrisp onto a rootstock half the size of a pencil of a g30. When chip budding, you leave everything in place above. The leaves will give the rootstock energy for spring. In April I snipped off everything above the graft and cut off the budding tape.

I would post a video but I have Dish so that one video would use up my monthly allotment.

 

[yoderjac]

I started my grafting today. I decided to start with T-budding since I've never had that work before. I've been grafting 2 buds to each seedling.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I grafted a few more this evening. We have had so much rain lately that bark slippage was not a problem. I'm up to 10 seedlings grafted so far. I still have a lot more to go.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Turkey Creek]

I am by no means a chip or T-bud expert, last fall was my first real success with T-buds on apples. I have always failed miserably with chip buds. Chip buds are always going to be more challenging than T-buds. A chip bud has to match the cambium perfectly on a good percentage of the bud. Otherwise the bud dries out before it calluses to the root stock. On T-buds the biggest improvement that I made was removing the sliver of wood behind the bud before inserting it into the root stock. Doing so gives you close to 100% cambium contact. I use a grafting rubber band to tie the bud in and then cover above and below the bud with Paraflim. I have not covered over the bud with Parafilm to date. It hasnt been necessary for me on apples, though on some larger root stock of cherry that I tried to graft last year the slit opened up even with the above steps and the bud dried out. Not sure if it was the larger size of the root stock or something else. I am going to put a layer of Parafilm over some cherry buds this year and see if it makes a difference.

 

[DLH]

I tried some t budding and chip budding yesterday with my government wood. I feel like chip budding would be quicker if I knew my success rate was high enough. I secured the bids with rubber bands and put a single wrap of parafilm over that. The bark wasn't slipping well for some reason so I did some t budding then favored chip budding later. After reading about your poor success with chip budding I am doubting my success on these. I also t budded some limbs on a larger crab and feel better about those. If these work out well this may be my prefered grafting method and I just plant rootstocks in spring where I want them and t bud later in the summer.

 

[yoderjac]

My count is up to 17 seedlings so far. I read that if the budwood is smaller than the rootstock removing the wood has less value but if the budwood is larger than the rootstock you pretty much have to remove the wood. On most of mine, I did not remove the wood, but on a few I did remove it. I'm about half way done now. I think I'll try to remove wood on more of them.

I had poor success chip budding this spring. In hindsight I think I had several issues. First, I was using left over dormant scion wood. I think the ones that did best were the ones with the most mature buds. They seemed to push out quickly and only a few later died. The second issue I think I had with the kind of parafilm I used. I used Parafilm-M for most of them. I love it for W&T grafting and for protecting scions from drying out, but I think it disintegrated too quickly for budding. I also had rolls of another kind of parafilm that I tried on some. It has less stretch and it is harder for buds to break through it, but it lasts much longer. That is what I used for this T-Budding. On many, I did not cover the bud. When I did cover the but, I was careful to make sure it was a single wrap.

Do you guys find that your T-buds push out in a few weeks or do they generally wait until next spring to push out?

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Turkey Creek]

My count is up to 17 seedlings so far. I read that if the budwood is smaller than the rootstock removing the wood has less value but if the budwood is larger than the rootstock you pretty much have to remove the wood. On most of mine, I did not remove the wood, but on a few I did remove it. I'm about half way done now. I think I'll try to remove wood on more of them.

I had poor success chip budding this spring. In hindsight I think I had several issues. First, I was using left over dormant scion wood. I think the ones that did best were the ones with the most mature buds. They seemed to push out quickly and only a few later died. The second issue I think I had with the kind of parafilm I used. I used Parafilm-M for most of them. I love it for W&T grafting and for protecting scions from drying out, but I think it disintegrated too quickly for budding. I also had rolls of another kind of parafilm that I tried on some. It has less stretch and it is harder for buds to break through it, but it lasts much longer. That is what I used for this T-Budding. On many, I did not cover the bud. When I did cover the but, I was careful to make sure it was a single wrap.

Do you guys find that your T-buds push out in a few weeks or do they generally wait until next spring to push out?

Thanks,

Jack

Everything I grafted to B118 roots broke bud 3 weeks later, everything on M111 stayed dormant until this spring. We will have to see if that holds true this year. I was concerned that the ones that broke bud last fall would winter kill, but they all pulled through just fine.

 

[yoderjac]

So far, I've grafted 1 to clonal M111 and the rest are to seedlings. I think I have a few M111 left. I guess I'll find out. I did right down the matriarchal parent of each seedling. I never thought of the root stock being the driver. I'll watch to see if there are any patterns.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[DLH]

I can't give a solid answer on them leafing out before spring as this is my first attempt. The pear I did in June has put on 8-12 inches and it was on a Bradford seedling. I contribute that to being early in the growing season. Can apples be t budded in June as long as the bark slips? The pear I did has done well does timing have more to do with when or having access to mature buds to use? The pear I used had mature buds where I've had a hard time deciding if the apple buds I've looked at on my trees would be mature enough for bud wood.

 

[yoderjac]

As of tonight, I'm up to 24 grafted. I've still got a ways to go...

 

[DLH]

Jack have you considered or tried t budding chestnuts?

 

[yoderjac]

My chestnut grafting has been a failure. I bought some dormant AU Super scions from Cliff England. I tried W&T grafting, a grafting tool that does wedge grafts, I also did some chip budding. I did it all this spring and nothing has pushed. Most have clearly failed. Some of the chip buds are still ambiguous but not promising. I have not try any T-budding with chestnuts yet. I understand that a chestnuts primary response to injury (grafting) is to put up new shoots. That seems to be the case so far for me.

My purpose for grafting them was to speed nut production but I got my first nut this year, so I'm now presuming I'll start seeing actual production in the next couple years anyway.

Thanks,

Jack