it is possible and every so often someone makes it sound easy. Commercially I believe all the maple clones are grafted. Think it is more instant gratification. Also I have read sugar maple is not easy to root but hey, it is a fun experiment.

FWIW, as a novice I find it easier to root than to graft. I have a whopping 0% success rate chip budding or grafting due to poor skill and lack of effort to make proper facilities. Air layering and just plain old rooting have worked for me though.

I have rooted cuttings of a few suckering bushes and it is always a coupke years before you have a real red twig dogwood or purple leaf plum or whatever.

It must be success rate or something that benefits grafting. I dislike the graft line at the bottom of my Metasequoia Ogon but I suppose they have a good reason for grafting rather than rooting.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to simple thread

Bonnie, not knowing your reasons for your question, what follows may be of no use to you. But.......where I live, any wooded area that's not floodplain will be bursting with sugar maple seedlings. So much so, that one could theoretically fling a spade randomly into the woods, and where it landed, there would be a young sugar maple waiting to be dug up and transplanted!

So, are you just wishing to obtain a small sugar maple, or is your interest in propagation?

+oM