If you have not grafted before I would plant the rootstocks out in the field or pots (wherever you are wanting to grow out the new trees), wait until they have 1" or so of leaves, and graft then. Bench grafts are more likely to fail, the temps are hard to get right for callousing and the stocks lose energy.

Scott

Scot is right. I'm not sure why he specified 1" of leaves. I am fine with that. I do it when the buds are opening. I guess we are only talking a few days difference.

The goes against a lot of what you read elsewhere on the web. I came to it by doing a bunch of grafting in one week intervals, grafting after the tree breaks dormancy was clearly the best success.

One factor you may not think of with grafting this late is your grafts aren't sitting out there waiting, then having a bird land on them (or cat, rabbit, basketball, etc)

Right, anything from leaf buds just opening to 2" is good.

Scott

Thanks