I came across this website, might be a good idea for any of you good at grafting and would like to travel a little. Or maybe as a side to next years Expo?!
I sure could use it, my grafting skills suck, I have plans over the holiday season to bone up on different techniques.
Darren
http://johnpanza.googlepages.com/signupforgraftingschool2008

John does cleft grafting. I prefer t-budding. See http://members.fortunecity.com/pjsauber/BuddingNotes.htm for a few secrets.

Budding is my preferred method on younger trees and rootstock seedlings and will be the only one I would do for such trees.

Budding is very unreliable when grafting unto mature or older trees. While they always took at the same rate, they would not sprout as reliably on older trees. We found that bark grafting is way lot better in those cases and have many evidences to literally show up for it.

Cactus,
Joe's bark grafting technique worked well for me ( after I quit trying to put Nules on Satsuma)-- it did pretty good even in the late summer heat. The best thing about it for me is that it works well using twig size pieces of budwood.

Cacti graft extremely well too!

Yes, that hands-on lesson is very good for first-timers. Very good deal as you've got yourself a plant after that. I've got to warn you, after successfully doing one, it can become quite addictive.

That's why i want to learn o do grafting better. I WANT it to become addictive and increase my collection.
Eyeckr came over one time and showed me some bud grafting. I really thought I had it down. I have tried many times since then, many times I really thought it was a good graft. Nope! They died.
I guess more study, more practice and LOTS of finger crossing.
Darren

Darren, something else must be wrong with your budding. Try bark grafting. Anyway, you buy yourself a lysol spray, the one which has an ethanol content of greater than 50%, read the ingredients. Spray your tools with it, spray your hands, the source budwood, and the destination trunk. Let dry, then do your operation. We want everything to be asceptic if possible.

Skeeter, you said bark grafting worked well for twig-sized pieces of budwood. What size branches were you grafting them onto? Were they real small also...

jc

I was putting toothpick size wood on pencil size limbs or rootstock sprouts. I have even gotten pretty good at doing an insert bark graft (bark graft without cutting off the limb-- make a cut on the limb like T-budding, but insert the twig instead of a bud). If you get just the right shape twig, you can often wrap it right against the limb with the parafilm tape.

I posted a picture of one of my small bark grafts on the photo forum a while back.