As for my three bud grafts, the first bud I removed was just for practice. When I cut into my M Californica, I noticed the bark was slipping so I thought I might as well try a bud graft. The first bud I removed was dropped two times and it took me several minutes to find it in all the leaf litter and soil. The buds are so tiny that if you drop them, you might as well just select another bud because it may have dried too much by the time you find it. This was confirmed when I decided to just use this first bud anyways. About one week after grafting, I noticed that the entire bud and leaf petiole stub was dried up. It appears that when you bud graft with younger green buds, the failed grafts turn brown pretty quickly.
At about two weeks after bud grafting my second and third bud grafts, one of the petiole stubs dried up on one of the bud grafts but the bud remained green. From previous experience grafting other fruit trees, this is usually a good sign! On 08/10/21 so approximately one month after the bud grafting, I noticed that the bud graft that had the petiole stub fall off was pushing its bud.
This is the graft I’m most excited about because it uses the least amount of plant material. Even though we know that cleft, side cleft and modified cleft grafts work, they use up too much wood. One scion for a regular cleft graft may contain 10 or more buds and if the graft fails, you lose all those buds.
With the bud grafts, you only lose that one bud if the graft fails. Anyways, here’s the bud graft that looks promising so far. You may notice the huge scar from bud grafting. It appears that M Californica leaves huge scars so it may be wise to make the smallest incisions possible that will fit the bud.
I’m surprised it takes a whole month for the bud to push but the bud I used was not swollen, it was just a tiny dot. I didn’t use a swollen bud because others have mentioned that if the graft pushes too fast, it usually dies. I guess this may not apply to bud grafts but who knows. Next time I will try a bud graft with a swollen bud. Maybe it will push faster.
Simon