Question about this technique. If you do t-buds in August will they grow this year or just sit until Spring?
This is BY FAR the most DIFFICULT plant propagation technique I have ever attempted. First, the bark on the seedling apples and crabapples I have will not slip--you have to try to peel it back which just tears it. Second, there is no where around here where parent trees put off nearly enough "this year" growth to find suitable buds to graft. The video makes it look WAY too easy. I'll stick to whip and tongues.
This makes sense, chip budding is new to me.There is chip budding and there is T-budding. Everything I have ever read or seen has you take a dormant leaf bud and implant it under the bark for T-budding. Chip budding you cut a dormant bud out of a dormant scion and then remove a chip of the same size out of the rootstock and replace it with the dormant bud.
I think my T-bud failures came from the fact that I either tried to do it too early (late July) or that I used bud wood that was too young. All my T- buds this year shriveled up and died on my apple rootstocks. This process has me bewildered at this point. Ed where are you harvesting your buds for your successful T-buds?