Best time to do is whenever the barks start to slip. The thousand calories of your bacon are still no match for the Reed avocadoes which have the highest oil content of them all. But don't worry those are very good HDL enhancing calories, entirely good for your heart. Well as long as maximum air temperature is within 60 to 90 deg F and that the minimum stays above 45 deg F, it is always a good time to cleft graft or bark graft. You don't even need the barks to be slipping if you do the cleft graft. But with bark graft, barks should be slipping. When cleft-grafting, do it on the terminal ends, near where the wood is firm but still green. To enhance take, it requires tremendous preparation which pays off with higher success rates. When collecting budwoods, ten days before, cut off the leaves of the terminal ends of the scionwood, leaving the petioles. This will make it look like you have porcupines. Then after ten days or whenever the petioles of the scionwood starts to fall off at the slightest touch (whichever comes first, the falling off or the ten days), collect the scionwood and cleft graft pronto!

My home grown avacados have been in the ground 6 years this year. One produced last year. After flowering profusely it gave me precisely 3 avocados. LOL, better than nothing. The other tree looks like it might flower this year. I currently have 1 homegrown and 1 grafted tree in bloom, and 1 homegrown and 1 grafted not blooming. Go figure. It's more to do with the Type (A or B) that you have growing on when it begins to flower. Expect very little fruit the first year as during the maturation of the fruit the tree will drop what it can not handle. Water like always, fertilize lightly (if you overfertilize you might stimulate green growth and the tree will abort more fruit) and cross your fingers! Can't wait to see the fruit of your labor. Barbie

It may be grafted - have you examined it carefully? If there is a scar(raised & puffy area) circling the trunk above the new branch, it would be a good idea to remove the growth.

F...you have covered a lot of ground....and of course you will obtain some random and diverse comments from others. I have 20 avocado trees with 16 varieties...so I know a little bit on the subject. First concern: Talk to me about the "termite damage". I doubt if they are termites. You may not be aware that there is an outbreak of borers that have invaded the avocado industry. Google that. If your tree or branches are damaged to the point of unstable...that must be addressed with pruning or elimination. Item two: What is with the "rootstock side"? Was this tree not a nursery tree that was originally grafted? Ungrafted avo trees are almost always a waste of time. Grafting is done to clone the scion to the "mother tree". Ungrafted trees have a 99% chance of producing inferior trees/fruit. I see no problem pruning that tree if the branches left behind are stable/safe. That is your biggest concern. If you want to do some grafting (this Spring)...why not obtain another variety to add to that tree?