Beautiful job of chipping, Frank.

:-)M

Mark-

I'm still perfecting it...by far my biggest issue is working on trees in the ground, once i get under the bud with the knife (under the actually flower/leaf buds there is a lot of resistance), that point that you get past that, i just strip about 6-8 inches of bark off! so annoying. If i take my time and really "rock" the knife, i tend to have a lot more success... Its mostly just me being too hurried. I'm still placing buds...more so just to get the practice.

I'll probably do a video and put it on here some time, if I can get my wife to hold the camera.

That is a great picture of what certainly appears to be a very successful budding. I think I'm close to the start of practicing on some of the wild trees on my property. I'm afaid that my 1st couple of attempts will also have excessively long cuts.

I hope you wife is willing to do the filming. We would all enjoy seeing the video.

Keep at it! It's just amazing how much a little practice gains us. We'll stay tuned for vdo at your convenience.

:-)M

Frank, really nice. Surgeon style. I got one chip bud of mine to take. Are your chips slightly narrower than the stock insert space? II lost most of my chips and maybe the stock was too young..
I've been having better luck with t-style budding and earlier on cleft grafting. I'll be chipping on branches as I can afford mistakes there!
Noogy

I just have a question regarding what appears to be a wire/paper twist tie below the bud. If that is what I am seeing, what is the purpose? The tape used is sufficient to retain the bud long enough and will not cut into the bark and risk damaging the cambium. Sometimes a notch is cut above the bud to help channel energy into the bud, but I don't see a purpose below the bud. Al

Al-

Funny you ask. That is all i had to identify the bud. I dug out a bunch of various colored twist ties. I'm not sure what else to use that will last a Wisconsin winter? I noticed my Raintree 4 in 1 uses nice plastic tags and what looks like a paint system (there is various colors on the different varieties).

Anyone have a good way to mark a bud? Masking tape and permanent marker?

Frank,

Nice graft.

I did a couple dozen peach grafts in June (They were T-buds not chip grafts.) They all callused in OK, but all but one of the buds was dark brown or black after I unwrapped them. I did have one bud green like the one your picture shows above, but after I unwrapped it, it turned brown. We had 100+ temperatures a few days after I made the grafts. It was just too hot and never did cool down.

Because they seemed to callus in, I went ahead and cut the top growth to try to force the grafts, but nothing came of it. The rootstocks pushed new growth, but none of the grafted buds did anything.

I mark my grafts with masking tape and a Sharpie, but there's probably a better way.

For temporary labels with some permanence try strips cut out of soda/beer cans. Easy to cut them with scissors. Cut long enough to use as a loose twist-tie. Write with ball point, dull pencil, or stick to emboss as ink won't take. Marking pens will write on them but will fade. Replace with permanent labels after bud is proved.

Frank:
Tomcot is an apricot--where did you get it? Is the cold a problem for an apricot rootstock?
Carla in Sac

My Tomcot came from Raintree... probably the only apricot i'd recommend for here... Its taken -20F and still flowered... I think the one thing is some of my trees sit in the shadow of the house all winter...so no winter sun hits them, they become very dormant in that setup, especially with a good snow cover.

Chip budding video I made... Not great, but hopefully you get the idea... The parafilm I have is garbage. It hardly stretches before breaking.

chip budding