After doing a few of these I'm wondering if my stock bud was viable. I had pencil thick stem (branch) with leaves but no swollen protruding visible "bud" like I see in most pics of grafting examples. In fact mine had a little divot/crater directly above the leaf petiole. Is that viable for T bud shield grafting? (Sorry I didn't take any pics of it.)

Fig buds aren't very pronounced when compared to other things, such as apple or peach.

The most important thing in T-budding (or any form of grafting) it to achieve cambium contact between rootstock and scion. It is also very important to seal the graft with parafilm to prevent the surfaces from drying out before they have an opportunity to fuse together.

The "divot" is the scar left behind when the leaf  fell off when the tree went dormant. The bud will be just above the leaf scar, and is often very small. Even if you cannot detect the bud, there is tissue there that is "programmed" to produce vegetative growth. It is possible that the bud did not form properly, or was damaged by freezing weather, and so will not be viable.

Some plants, such as citrus are very apically dominant, and when a bid is grafted in below the apex, it is not inclined to sprout. In that situation, after the graft has healed, the growth about the grafted bud is removed (making the grafted bud dominant), or the branch is bent over until the grafted bud is dominant.

This pic is what I was trying to describe. There is the petiole and "crater" just above it. My bud stock was cut about 1/2 inch above and below the leaf petiole. The woody material at the node is a bit tricky to remove and had me concerned that I may have damaged the bud.



Would it be better to use this type of bud stock, with nice plump visible bud?  (Which is just a theoretical question because I didn't have any.)

 

cjccmc,

We don't always have perfect buds to graft. Sometimes the only stocks available lack any sort of protruding buds and they may still work.

The key factor, as Jon is saying, is protecting them well until they fuse and then wait. Sometime we have to wait a full year because, even removing the apical buds the dormant grafted bud doesn't want to wake up.

I had chip buds that only "woke up" a full year after the graft (from March 2015 to April 2016)

      

Don't loose hope as sometimes, even when we think they are "duds" they surprise us. I had some very dried chip buds woke up when i almost had given up on them.

    


It's always a pleasure seeing them develop so well after this long dormant periods.

     

Hi All,
i have a couple questions about the two above videos about t budding,

the cuts are made and the bud is slipped under the bark
with no linning up of the cambium layers,  is this normal?

the  rootstock needs to be growing so the bark will slip when cut
but if you take the chip from the scion when it is also growing the
bud would also be growing,
taking scion early for bud material and storing in fridge till the rootstock
is growing would mean the scion bud would not be growing and the bark not slipping,

how is this scinareo handled so as the bark on the rootstock and scion/bud material
are both slipping?


 

With T-buds you use fresh cuttings so the bark is slipping on both ends (stock and scion)

When you use refrigerated cuttings you can't do a T-bud, you have to do a Chip Bud that also takes wood, not only bark - so the "no slipping" issue on the side of the stock is not a problem with Chip Buds.
You do the Chip Bud when the scion has some sap flowing, so that the cambium layers fuse without problems in 3-4 weeks.

Regarding the need to align the cambium layers... With the type of graft of the first video (that is more a Patch graft than a T-Bud, i like to do it with a double-grafting knife to perfectly align the cambium layers above and below the patch (no need to align both left and right also, one side is enough). With T-bud is usual to align the cambium layers above, on the t-line.