I recently pruned my apple trees and decided to try to graft those cuttings instead of tossing them in the compost just for fun. I pruned my trees and grafted to my rootstocks on the same day (3/21) into 2-gallon pots with a mixture of rich compost and some peat moss along with a 3-3-3 organic starter fertilizer. Now I'm playing the waiting game and checking on them every day to see if any buds are breaking. Scions are still green with a scratch test.
My rootstocks have definitely come out of dormancy because the buds on the rootstock are breaking and a few even have leaves maybe a half-inch in size. So far still no change on any of my scions. The trees the scions came from are also budding out so they are also coming out of dormancy now.
This is my first time attempting grafting. My reading on if I should keep or remove the rootstock buds at this stage have been mixed. One school of thought is they need energy coming out of dormancy for root development and healing and such so leave them on. Another is to remove all but the top one so if the graft fails you can attempt to save the rootstock for the following season. The last common school of thought I've found is you need to remove all as they break because you want all energy going into the scion.
Which is the proper way? Given what I've described is this normal for grafting?
