I just got my budwood from FL DPI. I T-budded 6 varieties this afternoon, most of them on my Lisbon lemon. I did bud one onto a trifoliata sprout on my satsuma. I tried budding my Ponkan Mandarin, but I do not have much faith in that one-- the bark was pretty tight--I guess it is not over the stress problems completely.

Here's a list of my new varieties:

Ambersweet
Calamondin
Changsha Mandarin
Daisy Mandarin
Hamlin
Meyer Lemon
Mandarin
Minneola Tangelo
Moro Blood Orange
Dancy Tangerine
Murcott
Qwari Satsuma
Royal Gft
Ruby Red Gft
Star Ruby Gft
Sunburst
Valencia

I will be budding tomorrow!-- -Skeet

I have budded all 17 at least twice-- 40 buds total. I have run out of places to put buds. I will save the rest and put them on my sisters' trees.

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Now there's another grafting addict!

I have learned a lot from this forum, but I guess it has turned me into a citriholic! I have some pics of my budding--

Here is a pic of the budwood-- it was a little intimidating to see how small it was-- I had practiced cutting bud on a lot bigger limbs.



The picture of the T cut was out of focus--but here is after the bud was inserted.



and here it is after it was wrapped and tagged.



two others wrapped and tagged.

Do you have a link for he FL DPI? I would like to get some of their budwood.
Terry

Here you go Terry--http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/budwood/index.html

They we very nice--I actually sent and email question about which varieties would be available and how much in advance I needed to order. I got an email back saying they were ready to cut my order, but I told her I actually wanted to wait until mid Sept when temps would drop below 90. She said she would go ahead and schedule me, but confirm before cutting.

Last week I saw temp predictions for this week were in the upper 80's so I emailed a request to cut on the 11th-- got my buds on the 13th by express mail.

Good luck -- Skeet

It is unbelievable the staggering number of citrus varieties available. If a person grew one tree of every known variety of citrus, many, many hundreads of acres would be required. - Millet

There are at least 200 cultivars being offered as budwoods from UCR. Gene Lester alone has more than 250 varieties and indeed acres and acres of land perhaps.

I did another bunch of grafts today, about 20, on my sisters' trees. That makes something like 60 total.

I timed myself today to see how long between cutting the bud and getting it inserted-- I did some in under 10 seconds-- I think the practice is beginning to help.

I came up with an idea today that seemed to help-- I made a little stand to hold my budwood while I cut the buds. I drilled 3 holes in a small block of wood, different sizes from about 1/8 to 1/4 inch to stand the budstick in
(whichever size fits the budstick), then I can hold the leaf stub (the piece of leaf attached left to the bud eye) in one hand while I cut the bud with the other. When the bud is cut I already have it between my fingers and am ready to insert it into a waiting T that has been opened.

I just hope I get one of each variety to take-- that way I will have budwood available for grafting onto rootstock that I grow from seeds.

It has been 1 week since I did the first buds-- so far only 2 out of 42 are looking like they did not take. If I get 50 % I will be extremely happy.

The ones that are not looking good are the ones I expected not to make it-- on my ponkan-- I am actually surprised to see 2 of the 4 on the ponkan are still looking OK.

I want to thank all of the people on this forum for sharing their knowledge, because any success I may have is due to the knowledge I gained here from all of the links, post and replies to my questions.

I am still learning from some of the old threads that I have been going through.

Skeet

Three weeks since I started budding and I have 25 definite takes. 14 of the 17 varieties have at least one good bud. I guess that is approximately 60% -- much better than I expected for my first time.

I checked one of my sisters' trees today and she had 5 out of 9 still green.

I could have never done that without the help and info I got from this forum.

-- Skeet

From my perspective, the success rate is adding a cultivar, not buds, so your rate for a first-timer would be 82.35%

I've noticed that most of you, if not all of you who do this come from much warmer climates than I. Not that I am ready to undertake such a thing yet, but one day maybe if possible. Do you guys know of people up here who have had success with this?

Skeeter, how long did you practice before you went for it? I am very impressed by your success rate! Way to go!

And also, can anyone tell me what the hamlin tastes like? It looks like a beautiful fruit! If I can grow those in containers here, I wouln't mind a crack at it. It's my boyfriends last name, just missing an "e" in there.

Thanks for the complement Joe-- you were a big part of my success.

Gen--don't let it scare you-- it is really simple if you follow the tutorials.
I read all of them several times.

I practiced cutting about 10 buds from a limb off of my lemon (about a 1/4 to 5/15 in diameter and perfectly round)-- but it was a lot nicer budwood than what I got which was a lot smaller and some were pretty angular. I practiced cutting the "T" only a couple times--that is easy-- but one caution on that-- pick a spot where you have easy access--I picked a few spots where it was difficult to slip the bud in due to other limbs or branches.

Speed is the key-- especially after you have cut the bud--get it inserted quickly. That little block I made and posted a picture of makes it easy to cut buds safely. I like to leave a long tail and then cut it off after insertion--it give you a handle to hold the bud by (I did inverted "T"s so the tail is toward the "T".)

I didn't even use grafting tape-- I cut plastic strips from newspaper bags.

Cooler weather will probably help -- I waited until we had some less than 90 highs in the forecast. Give it a try!

Skeet

CONGRATS SKEET!!
You did better than I did with success rate. I agree those small triangular ones are hard to cut - esp for beginners.
I tried getting budwood fron the link you posted, but they won't ship outside of Fl. It's ok cuz I'm too busy to do any budding lately.
You are a true CITRUHOLIC! You should think of going to the citrus expo in Va