rabbit:

When I whip&tongue dormant scions onto rootstock just before bud break, it is usually about one month before the buds start pushing. I was just looking at mine grafted about 6 weeks ago. The scions were fully chilled at grafting but the bark was tight as is needed for W&T. Buds are pushing on all but two and I'm certain those two are failures.

One of the failures was about a one inch union. That is too big for W&T. There is no give to the wood and the union must be perfectly cut to have any hope. A cleft or bark would have been a better bet at that size. I don't really like cleft because it leaves an open wound.

What technique did you try?

I tried whip & tongue. This is my first shot at it so I'm very interested as to whether these 4 grafts will succeed or not. I practiced a little with small branches from a plum tree to get a feel for the joining technique, but when I did the real thing I realized the slightly different sized wood and different strength and flexibility of the root & scion make it a little tougher to be gentle. I look forward to a month from now when I will start to have an idea how this went.