Pre-grafted Walnut Trees:

We have bought in 600 pre-grafted ("dormant budded") trees. Rather then being bare rooted for planting during Winter, these had been potted up (into plastic growth tubes) since it "was such a small order". These required planting out in Spring.

This page describes what to expect if you follow the same route in establishing your walnut plantation. (We have another 450 walnut trees grown from Black Walnut seeds as root stock that will still need to be grafted (patch budded) in situ.) 

These are some of the pre-budded trees.

These are quite substantial with many being a metre high. These were from GrowTek where they were grown in sandy soil with "fertigation" (i.e. irrigation containing constant amounts of fertiliser), being typically twice the size of our trees grown in a good clay loam but without irrigation. (Interestingly, it was pointed out to us that our rootstock trees, although smaller without the constant irrigation and fertiliser, showed constant spacing of buds up the trunk, indicating constant growth rates during the year, without any periods of growth delay despite the very dry autumn in 2004.) 

An example of a bud graft with the grafting tape still in place.
 

These need to be allowed 3 weeks for the graft to "take" before the tape is removed and the graft checked to see if it is alive. If it is, the top is cut off the tree, forcing growth from the foreign bud.

This is an example of a tree that has been budded a second time. The remains of a failed prior budding can be seen below the tape around the new patch budding.
 

The roots on these trees are quite substantial. This is an example from one of the pre-grafted trees that was damaged in transit and not planted out. Note the strong regrowth of the roots after the tap root had been cut prior to being potted out during winter. At least part of this root growth may well have been while the tree was "dormant" during the winter.