Sam,

When the scions leafed out the less chance it will take. You need to harvest now and find some that are not fullly open and slow them down by storing in the refrigerator.

Tony

Yup- what Tony says. Once they begin to emerge your chances drop.

If your tree is big enough take a good look and there will be some completely dormant buds somewhere on it (look by the bases of small lower inside shoots). Two days ago I found a stump I had forgot to topwork over and I found some still-dormant buds off a nearby tree to use.

Scott

Towards the base of any given shoot the buds come out later also. I often graft taking a piece from one tree straight to another after growth starts but I don't want to see green on the scionwood. These later wood grafts are sometimes my most vigorous but I've had wood with buds just beginning to show green- but showing it, that failed.

Thanks all. I'll take a closer look and maybe put a few sticks in storage now. But I guess if I go out and find wood with dormant buds on Saturday, I could still use that in place of the stored wood.

Or I can graft on one of each and see which one wins!

Scott, I found myself wondering about dormant buds today- my wife and I were on old farm land and came across a couple of very old apple trees; I wished I'd known about them a few weeks ago! As I looked them over I wondered about all those very dormant "spare" buds. Might a person just chip those in?

Thanks,

Mark

Sure, it its a big tree it should have a dormant bud somewhere on it. Last spring a tree was dying, all the leaves were limp when I found it. There were a few dormant buds I saw and I chip budded those to a root and the variety is now growing again.

Scott

That opens a door! Thank you.