Never ever had one take.
That said, I have friends in MI and NJ who chip-bud nut trees, and say they do just great.
Maybe my technique is just crappy.

I did my first ever chips in mid Sept last fall. These were plum, pluot, sweet cherry, and nectarine. All but one took, maybe 19 of 20. A couple even pushed weeks after budding with no forcing. The others are healed in superbly and were cut off above the buds yesterday.

I've had lousy luck with T budding in August. This worked much better, maybe date, maybe technique.

Can't believe I was fooled into another duplicate post!!

This post was edited by fruitnut on Sun, Jan 25, 15 at 12:07

Maybe climate and vegetative state of the "rootstock" as more impact on chip buds than other forms of grafting?

I have done many chip buds. Overall it seems to be more reliable than T-budding for me. Make sure you get perfect cambium alignment on one of the sides; its also easy for it to slip as you wrap so you need to keep watching alignment as you wrap.

Scott

I've had good to great success T budding both stone and pome fruits. It does take practice and experience to get high takes especially stone fruits. They have thinner bark. The number one key for T budding is the bark must be slipping very well. Chip budding doesn't require slipping bark on scion or rootstock.

Chips are very dependable for me on pomes and plums, and my one success with apricot was with a chip. I don't use any of the special tools- pocket or budding knife and parafilm. Otherwise I'm a pretty poor technician compared to many here.

I think the problem is with bench grafting, when you don't have active growing roots. Graft when you see growth.

Chip grafting is generally done during the growing season; April- Sept in most climates, usually using in-ground stock plants.
I'd be interested to hear about anyone doing successful(or not) 'dormant' chip budding, and their practices. Scott has written a bit before on it I think, could he elaborate?