u/No-Fix-5496

Spring patch budding walnuts!

Summer grafting season has officially started here. as some of you may already know, I'm also finishing up that little summer walnut grafting guide I've been talking about. not much left to do now.

Time to start patch budding!

I’m just putting this out for free now.

Beginner guide to spring walnut patch budding. It’s based on years of doing this, lots of trial and error, failures, successes, and random notes I kept while grafting walnuts in the field.

Download from here

If it helps you and you feel like supporting the work that went into it, you can buy me a coffee. No pressure at all, just hope it actually helps someone.

Optional support (BTC): 17XKaoMMHNTKbNwmVjjm5XXbCGKhFoumsm

Started summer patch budding on my walnut saplings again :) same method I’ve been using and refining over time. in summer conditions callus formation is usually pretty stable and sap flow ain’t really a limiting factor for this method, so it mostly comes down to execution + plant vigor. I’ll check back later once the buds start to take and grow!!

After years of grafting and hundreds of successful unions, the excitement is different than it was in the beginning. These days it's less about hoping for success and more about evaluating the quality of the union, vigor of the shoot, and performance of the genotype.

Still, seeing a dormant bud wake up and push new growth is always satisfying.

I've documented this method and its results for years through detailed records, photos, and seasonal evaluations. It's been interesting to see how small refinements in technique can gradually improve success rates over time.

These are some of my unsuccessful patch buds. In several cases, the rootstock began forming callus tissue and attempted to establish a connection with the bud, but the graft ultimately failed and the bud died. I've always documented both successes and failures in photographs, spreadsheets, and personal notes. In fact, many of the observations that eventually found their way into my grafting guide came directly from analyzing failures like these. Every failed graft leaves clues. By studying those clues season after season, I've been able to refine my methods and steadily improve my success rates.

The bud took successfully, pushed a short shoot with a few leaves, and then started flowering shortly after.

The graft union formed a large amount of callus tissue around the patch bud, resulting in a very solid-looking union.

I wasn’t expecting flowering this early from a newly established bud of this specific genotype.

I wasn’t expecting much from this batch. The greenhouse conditions were rough—poor airflow and daytime temps regularly pushing past 40°C (104°F). Most of the patch buds looked stressed early on, and I honestly assumed I’d lose them all.

But this one kept pushing.

Not the biggest success I’ve had, but definitely one of the most surprising given how stacked the odds were against it.

Curious if anyone else has had grafts survive conditions that should’ve completely wiped them out.

(I’ve spent the past few years taking notes from grafting trials like this, and I eventually turned those observations into a small, practical patch budding guide. It’s more of a simplified, user-friendly version of what I learned—not a collection of individual case records.)

I recently bought 20 PTFE syringe filters for about $0.47 each because they were being sold as expired stock.

They look legitimate, are individually sealed, and I only plan to use them as gas-exchange filters on plant tissue culture vessels. Still, the deal almost seemed too good to be true.

Would you consider this a great find, or are there reasons you'd avoid using PTFE filters this far past their expiration date? Also curious whether counterfeit syringe filters are something people actually encounter or mostly an internet myth.

A small portion of my walnut trees (maybe 10%) are drying up and dropping leaves.
Branches look fine.
Younger trees are hit harder than the older ones.

Weekly irrigation, urea, humic acid, and a very windy location.
Not sure if this is wind damage or something else. Pics included.

The graft pushed hard this spring and is already loaded with female flower primordia + super vigorous vegetative shoots!

A few people requested an update on my recent walnut patch buddings 🌱

They are all sprouting now and have already torn through the parafilm. Strong vigorous shoots so far!

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/u/No-Fix-5496/s/wMt0ILqwEg

Was pulling out weeds around my walnut trees then suddenly this cutie popped out of nowhere 😭😄