By Donnaj1dlh
Aberdeenshire,
Scotland 
My new dwarf fruit trees are looking a bit 'barren' in places - the branches seem to have lots of dormant buds whilst the tips of the branches are in full leaf/bloom.
I read in AG recently about a technique called 'notching' that's supposed to stimulate the buds into life ..... so I've tried it by cutting a small segment of bark off above the bud (just so that's it reveals green) using a sharp pruning knife.
Has anyone else done this to their fruit trees - has it worked for them?
11 May, 2011
Previous question
I've never tried it on fruit trees, though I vaguely remember something about cutting in this way. I did though, cut in half the woody, non productive root section of a Yucca flaccida and repot the sections, expecting the one with topgrowth to grow on as before, but to my surprise, the seemingly dead half has now sprouted in 3 different areas. It was just an experiment, but it seems that cutting into it has induced growth... hope it works on your fruit tree.
15 May, 2011