Grafting fruit trees by budding has pros and cons. The technique is widely used for many types of trees, including apples, but isn’t necessarily the first grafting technique that comes to mind for people with only a general idea of how grafting works.
When you think of grafting fruit trees, you might picture taking a piece of scion wood and using a sharp knife or specialty grafting tool to make a specific cut that matches a corresponding cut on a piece of rootstock. Cleft and whip-and-tongue grafts are examples of this technique. Grafting in this manner typically takes place during the winter, while trees are dormant.
What is Budding?
Budding is a very different grafting technique. With budding, a short branch of suitable size is cut off the desired specimen of tree. The leaves are clipped off (leaving short stems behind, which serve as handles for holding the buds), and a knife is used to carefully slice a single leaf bud off the branch, bringing some bark and even a sliver of wood along with.
Then, a cut (usually T-shaped) is made into the bark of the rootstock or branch on which the bud will be grafted. The bark is gently opened, and the bud is inserted into this cut and secured in place with strips of rubber that tightly hold down the flaps of bark and prevent drying. Once the union heals, the desired bud is trained to grow dominantly, usually by removing all of the rootstock or branch above the grafted bud.
Budding is performed during the spring or, more commonly, summer, at a time (which varies depending on many factors) when the bark of the rootstock or branch will peel back easily from the underlying wood, which is called “slipping.” This makes it easy to create the T-shaped cut and open the bark to insert the desired bud.
Chip budding is a variation of budding that uses deeper and more precise cuts. You don’t have to be in slipping season to perform chip budding, which is a plus if you miss your window of opportunity for regular budding.
Advantages of Budding
Budding offers several advantages over other types of fruit tree grafting. A big one is the reduced need for practiced knife skills. Whereas other types of grafts require making matching (and sometimes complicated) cuts on both scion wood and rootstock, budding is far simpler. Once you have a feel for how much bark/wood to cut off with the bud, there’s not much to it.
Partly because of this, budding is faster than other types of grafting. It can also lead to a stronger graft union. And if you want to grow six different types of apples on a single tree, budding makes this relatively simple and straightforward. During the summer, you can add buds of the desired specimens to the branches of the host tree and not have to worry about healing them at specific temperatures while the tree is dormant, which can be a tricky aspect of other types of grafting.
Disadvantages of Budding
The good news is, there are hardly any disadvantages to budding. It’s an excellent grafting technique that can yield success at a higher rate than other types of grafting.
That said, a couple of small downsides should be noted. Since budding takes place during the growing season, usually in summer, it can be hard for busy hobby farmers to find the time compared to grafting by other means during the quiet of winter.
Also, chip budding requires greater knife skills than regular budding, so that’s something to keep in mind if you’re less comfortable handling a knife.
Still, these are minor downsides compared to the many advantages offered by budding. If you’re interested in propagating fruit trees via grafting, hopefully, our exploration of the pros and cons of budding has convinced you to give the technique a try.
This article about grafting fruit trees was written for Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.
