Not sure if apple grafts took?

In March I cut branches off crabapple tree. I then cut a slit into my apple tree, whittled the bottom of the crabapple branches to reveal wood under bark, then placed branch in my apple branch, wrapped in twine, and sealed it with tree tar.

It's been over a month and the graft twigs look thin and wrinkled, the buds opened but no green or growth in over a month. My apple tree has leaves and blooms but my grafts, nothing.

Are they dead, if so what went wrong I followed instructions perfectly. I did 6 grafts.

Keith,

Wait until this year's scion twigs harden up about mid August. Then cut just buds from the scion branch, and insert it either under the bark using a TEE bud, or just place it against the understock using a Chip bud. Use Budding tape, similar to green tying tape, but thinner, and wrap it so the air does not penetrate and dry out the bud. You should know in a month or six weeks if the bud has adhered to the understock, but that bud will most likely not show growth until next Spring.

Google up Tee Budding and Chip Budding, and you will find diagrams and more information on it. The most important seems to be timing, as i learned to do it in Idaho, but had to do it two months earlier to get them to stick here in CA.

If you have limited understock, you can put more than one bud on it, but do not do enough to interfere with the sap flow on the understock.

Ernie

Here are photos of my grafts, so you can see if I did them right.

Keith,
I have not done any grafting. When i had my Nursery we would do a few thousand chip buds, as that is the easiest fastest way to propagate, especially in the field.

Grafting is done to rework larger trees in to some other variety, or at the bench in the winter time, when working with wood.

If you were able to make contact between the cambium layers on both, and kept them from drying out, they may very well grow together. It takes a while, of course as the new growth cells have to develop.

My suggestion for budding is in case the grafts do not take, or if you do more in the future.

Lots of very good information along with drawings on Google for both methods, so that should answer any questions you may have about the two processes.

Also, if you do want to do quite a bit of grafting, one of the DG members posted about a cutting and shaping tool that gave him perfectly matched joints, and that in turn was giving him very good success. Read back on the forum for other threads concerning grafting.

Ernie

Looking at your photos, the bark looks shriveled - not good - but not all the way back to the graft - there is still hope. The bud closest to the graft may still make it. I would cut through a shriveled section toward the tip and see if the cross section is dead.

Keith,
If any of your scion buds do break, you might want to remove all but one or two, as the new joint may not provide enough energy or sap through the joint to support more buds than that.

You have enough room on the understock tree to attach several buds, and by not cutting off the understock branch, the circulation will help your buds to stick, and reduced danger of disease getting into the wound.

Ernie