I had some time to examine my trees (backyard, 2nd year inground) to catch up on how they are doing. It has been hot and dry in Arizona lately, but so far so good. I'm hoping to do some bark grafting either this fall or next spring to add some varieties onto the trees. I'm space limited to 4 full size trees and have about a dozen varieties I want .

While looking the trees and planning out what branchs to graft for best structure, a question/idea struck me. I've always done bark grafts as most tutorials show them, and with good success. I wondered if in the case of a primary scaffold branch being topworked to a single new variety, a 45 degree angle cut (or steeper) wouldn't have some useful advantages over the typical square cut? By cutting the stock at a 45 degree angle you would be limited to placing one or two scion sticks near the point of the cut, so the orientation of the cut would be important. It also would take more time to bind/seal. The advantages I see are the shedding of rain water (same reason as the angle cut-off at the top of the scion), but mainly I wondered if a tapered cut wouldn't tend to direct the cambium fluid flow much more efficiently to/from the scion? Especially during the first season or two before the cut is fully calloused over. I've always thought that well healed bark grafts done on larger caliper wood looked painfully unnatural, even years afterwards.

Anyone tried this or is there a reason it isn't used ?