Can buds that have apparently fallen off regrow? The reason why I'm asking is I was looking for some scions to pick to graft to my tree and I saw some scions that had buds that looked like they had either fallen off or were broken off. I couldn't quiet be sure. Some even looked a little brown above the petriole. Maybe they died off or maybe there were once small flower buds there.

Would these be good candidates to use for grafting? Can buds that had apparently fallen off, broken off or died off for some reason grow back again and be used as scions?

I have never really seen what you are describing, but there are potentially multiple bud eyes above each leaf scar. I posted a question about this a couple yr ago when a couple T-buds that I had forced were broken off--they were only about 1/4 inch long and I was concerned that I had lost the graft. Fortunately, there was a second bud in one of the grafts--it grew over 4 ft that year!

It sounds like the leaf petitoles are being described and not the actual bud.

If you are really desperate to propagate some rare variety and no other budwood is available, then it's worth trying. I've had fairly hopeless looking budwood start sprouting after several years doing nothing - except perhaps slowly regenerating a viable bud.
However, in my experience, the bigger and fatter the bud the faster it's likely to start growing.

I don't mean the petriole. On some scions, I'm seeing a brown spot above the petriole where the bud would be. In some cases the sprouted bud appears to have been broken or cut off. I'm just wondering if I can still use these as scions and if new buds will still sprout from theses sites where it looks like something had already sprouted but for some reason didn't make it.

They certainly would not be my choice, if I had any other choice, but there is a possibility that there is still a viable bud there. You can see branches on trees where 2 or 3 branches come from the same point, so it is not uncommon to have more than one bud at a node.

It could be a fallen flower. Try it anyway.

In regards to using eyeless buds on sticks as GRAFTING scions, you would expect a long wait for any growth to flush from the graft, if ever!
In my experience of chip budding eyeless buds, the buds took well, but didnt seem to repair themselves, even after a couple of years.
It is possible to get new shoots from callus areas, such as the top edge of healed cuts etc, so it is not 100% impossible to get some result in this case.
However, unless as others have said above, the scion is rare, or you have no other material, the time delay for growth is probably not worth the wait.
In fact your scion source will probably produce new better sticks next year, which could be successfully grafted and grown, long before the blank stick ever does anything.
Also any shot buds with blackened areas, could be the victim of fungal infection, which may be a risk of spores contaminating your other grafting.

Most buds can sprout multiple times. As pagnr said I would make sure it isn't a fungal disease.

You will have a better chance with a cleft graft--more buds, plus, I don't know what the temp is there, but it is getting a bit hot here for T-budding. Bark grafting and cleft grafting work a little better in hot weather.

The bottom 2 buds on a flush of growth will be blind buds and not make a plant. When cutting scions I alway disard the bottom 2 buds.

Although you have many more experts addressing this issue of the "scar", I do have a question. Could this scar have been where someone removed a thorn? Barbara

Funny that I just found this thread. I just accidently knocked off one of my meyer lemon buds this evening and thought it might be gone forever. I have several others, but hate to loose even one. Sounds like there might be hope of a second bud coming back to life.

Phillip

I do not know if this really adds to this conversation but I occasionally walk threw Wal-Mart and at one store garden center there are several citrus trees. Several of them have a knob very close/at the graft were evidence of previous suckers where trimmed. They had some growing at the time so I removed the rootstock sucker for them. This past week I was walking threw it again and the suckers had re-grown. I assume all of these are from the same bud. So there are many that have grown and re-grown. I removed them again.

Who ever eventually buys those are going to have to be very vigilant to prevent the rootstock from taking over.