For the past couple of weeks, the blog posts have focused on plant propagation (sexual and asexual). The main reason was to lead up to this post: a real world example from the nursery! When talking about asexual propagation, grafting is a popular method. Within the grafting category, a common method used when propagating fruit and ornamental trees/bushes is budding.
What is Budding?
Budding is a form of grafting, where a bud is removed from one plant and placed under the bark of another plant (where a growing bud has been removed). If the bud is successful, a callus will form. At the point where a callus is formed, the tree should be pruned so that the callused bud now becomes the main branch.
Types of Budding
Two common types of budding are:
- Patch-budding – Patch budding is used for thicker-barked trees. In this case, a rectangular/square shaped patch of bark where a bud occurs is removed and the same sized bud from another tree is inserted. The patch is wrapped with an airtight parafilm to aid in the success rate of forming a callus.
- T-budding – T-budding is the most common method used when budding fruit trees. In this case, a t-shaped piece of the tree is removed where a bud occurs and a t-shaped bud is inserted underneath the bark. The patch is tied off using budding rubbers to aid in forming a successful callus.
Budding Plants at the Nursery – Real World Example
This past spring, I took a trip to Fowler Nurseries in Newcastle, California, when they were t-budding fruit trees. They use budding so that they can have the mix of the perfect tree for their customers: a rootstock that will withstand environmental conditions and a scion that will bear the desired fruit. Their budding process occurs before field planting and can be summarized as follows.
1. They grow both the bud wood and the plants that receive the graft.
2. The young trees are budded. The workers carry the bud wood in the canvas wraps on their backs. For each bud they remove from the plants laid out in containers, they remove a bud from the bud wood and insert it into the plants in the containers. Once the bud has been inserted, the bud is tied off using budding rubber.
3. Once the plants are budded, they are taken back to the greenhouse while the bud patch heals. In the example on the right (below), you can see that the bud was successful by the callus that formed over the grafting union.
4. The plants are then taken to grow outside. For the first year, they are grown with grow straights to keep the plants growing upright. In this outside growing area, they are able to grow 19,000 trees/acre prior to selling.
When they grow the budded trees outside, they keep track of the different cultivars used, as well as the budding crew that worked on each section of trees to measure the success rate. Just like with most other aspects of agriculture, budding is an art that takes a lot of effort to perfect.
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