Hi Myk- glad to see your failures turned out so well.

Masking tape doesn't like to come off, so when I used it I left it on; takes forever to degrade, though. One of the reasons I prefer parafilm (which needs little or no attention afterward) or poly strips, which come right off.

Just FWIW.

:-)M

Dude, that is sweet! Is this graft from the mystery apple pie tree?

I bought 1 rootstock (b9) along with my order of trees. NOW im itching to get more.

Masking tape on my poorly timed attempts at T-budding broke as the trees grew and came right off. I hope it works like that with these.

This is a spur type McIntosh. My nephew doesn't like my niece's RD type pies, but liked the pie I gave her some mix for. She asked what kind I used and I had to tell her the pies people like best are from her mystery tree. So I threatened my supply.
She'll get this one and one of the mystery trees. I'm sucking up so she doesn't save all her mystery tree apples for her husband :)

These are on G.11. Now that I've actually had success I'm dying to push my niece into starting a Upick sized orchard. If I had more than 5 grafts to do I'd probably get some grafting tape rather than go with what I have laying around the house.
I'll talk to her at Memorial day. Grandpas has 10 packs for around $40 and between us we could supply the bud wood to at least expand what she has cheaply.

I dont see anymore rootstocks listed from grandpas anymore, or I would get some more.

I figured they'd sell those longer than the trees. I hope it's a good thing and it means they'll have them again and maybe larger quantity price breaks next year.

I also have a friend offering me the use of some of his land. I don't need the apples but if the price gets cheap enough I may do it for the same reason he's offering it, deer hunting.

This one is taking off like gangbusters.
I peeled the plastic off the others. They don't look as good. A bug or a bird ate part of one, I don't know if there's enough left for it to pull through or not but it's still green.

I think I know what the difference is. By the time I got back to this one I decided not to cut as deep so the cambium on the rootstock was really wide, no problem making contact.
On the others I was cutting as deep as I had for the chip and the size difference meant only top bottom and one side were making contact. At least that's all I can figure.

I've got room on the rootstock that got ate so I may put a backup bud on it if I have any green wood left.