Yes it excels at sealing a cleft graft or bark graft where the understock is much larger than the scion. I don’t use it for any other graft simply because parafilm works so well on splice grafts and whip and tongue grafts. You could dip the tips of scions in it to seal.
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Well, maybe. But my idea is that I want to encourage the pieces to knit together and callous to form, and that the wax would get in the way of that. You raise an interesting point, and I’ll await input from others before I change my habits. It may be that the growing callous would just squeeze excess wax out over time, and I’ve had it all bass-ackwards and just gotten away with it. Wouldn’t be the first time.
I do try to pull grafts together as tightly as I can without cutting into the cambium (which I’ve also done!) If I had my theoretical druthers I’d rather that each piece fit absolutely perfectly, and there’d be no room for air even, let alone wax.
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I only make cleft grafts and don’t use any wax. I just cover everything in parafilm — from the tip of the scion to about one inch below the cut on the understock. My reasoning is that I don’t want wax to get inside the cut and hinder natural callousing and healing (as Mark described above). On the other hand, covering with wax on the top of parafilm seems redundant. I didn’t deal yet with understock of really large diameter, perhaps I would use wax on open stump area for these.
By parafilm, do you mean Saranwrap type plastic kitchen wrap you use to cover food?
You can see a few example of parafilm on amazon. I have been using it for about two years now and I do believe it has improved my take rate. In my opinion the two inch wide paper backed type is the best although the other works also. Bill
The cheap grafting parafilm on Amazon is like cellophane. Everyone on this forum is referring to laboratory grade parafilm-m, which is a stretchable wax tape. The buds can grow through parafilm-m.
Well, I’m not necessaarily referring to parafilm-m, although I may be using it. The stuff I use is this:
I haven’t tried the stuff on Amazon.
I haven’t needed to order from Midwest Vineyards Supply for a few years (and yes, my parafilm did hold up over those years with little problem), but was very happy with their service when I did. Nice website, nice people.
My parafilm M was a disaster. It cracked badly after a couple of days. I lost many fig cuttings as a result.
I bought this one on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Parafilm®-Grafting-Tape-Genuine-Clear/dp/B0085OFNVE
I don’t know if this is what other people use, but it works well for me. It stretches well and holds on grafts (except where buds grow through) for a few months.
I bought the parafilm from Fedco Seeds.
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs/search?item=8898
I like to tie the parafilm wrapped graft with rubber bands to further tighten the union. Then I place the masking tape over the rubber band with the variety name written on it. The masking tape seems to help slow down the disintegration of the rubber band and parafilm.
Hey Guys,
I really like to graft by setting up the whip/tongue on my scion (keeping it moist/wet via water or even my mouth [wash the scion in case person sprayed some stuff in winter like Dormant oil/copper heh]) then doing the rootstock.
Then line up and fit the whip and tongue graft on the scion and rootstock into each other.
Then i use grafting rubber band to get a nice tight union, then spit alongside the rubber and parafilm it up to keep moisture inside.
Alot of grafting tutorials i seen lately do the opposite, parafilm first then rubber band. Anyone have a preference?
I dislike the latter “parafilm 1st” method, cause after a few wraps of parafilm, the scion may move around and Im not sure if the union is still ‘perfect’ before I apply rubber band. But if i use rubber band first, I can make nice tight wraps with the rubber band (where the rubber is nicely wrapped ‘flat’ and tight against the wood) and see the branch is lined up all the way until the end of the graft where the rubber ends. Rubber is thinner so if you goof u see it earlier, but parafilm if wider (and not as ‘tight’) so u see less if the wood moves around (then when applying rubber it may move around more and u wont see it under the layer of parafilm).
Any opinions on this? “Parafim then Rubber” or “Rubber then Parafilm”?
My vote is for “Rubber then Parafilm”
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I don’t trust the parafilm by itself to bind the joint tightly, so I always wrap with rubbers first- that is, until I learned Alan’s method of making whip grafts with nippers and tape. Now I wrap with Temflex and cover that, probably redundantly, with parafilm.
But yes, parafilm after the joint is secured.
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I don’t know if I’m qualified to comment because I’m not a complete beginner, but I agree with you and much prefer to do the grafting rubber first, and then the parafilm. I like to use 1/2" parafilm because its easier to get -what I consider- the best tension in it.
The less perfect my cuts, the tighter I wrap the grafting rubber. I make sure I pull it tight enough that I can see that there are no air gaps between the scion and the rootstock. If I put the parafilm on first, I wouldn’t be able to see that. Also the parafilm would distribute the pressure of the grafting rubber making it less effective at forcing local conformation between the scion and the rootstock.
Interesting conversation, a bit too late for me this year as I just finished all of my bench grafting but still good to know.
I think I got my parafilm from the same link as Stan. I can’t say if it is the same as the medical/lab stuff as I’ve never seen that, but it seemed to stretch and stick OK.
Now that this grafting is all over I have a few questions that I probably should have stopped to ask while still doing it: One question I have is how tightly are you supposed to wrap the parafilm/rubber band/electrical tape? I watched a few vids on it and got a rough idea of the tension I was aiming for, but still I can’t say that I really got it right. Easy to get tension on a W&T graft, but the others could seem to move some as they got wrapped.
One other things which has me stumped is how to tightly wrap the parafilm without moving the graft joint. Seems that when I put enough tension to stretch the parafilm then I risked moving and un-aligning the joint. I’m sure there is some trick to it, but I just didn’t figure it out. (Probably wrapped the scions too loosely but hopefully it won’t detract from the moisture sealing)
Looks like I graft in the opposite order from most others listed. My thoughts are if your getting good results it probably doesn’t matter which method you use. My first wrap is with stretched parafilm. It seals the cut and holds it in place for my final wrap with electrical tape. Applying parafilm first also helps with removal of the tape later on without damaging the bark. Bill
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I like to wrap my whole scion first in parafilm, then cut the end and do a whip and tongue graft, secure the graft union with rubber and put another piece of parafilm over that. I learned this technique from an expert on this forum but in another thread (I think?) and it works great because when wrapping the whole scion later I tended to disturb the joint.
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Thats exactly how I’ve approached grafting. And it’s been very successful.
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I wrap my whip grafts with parafilm first and sometimes stretch it into a string to snug it up tighter to hold the graft. I paint the graft over with tanglefoot rather than black tape. Clefts I coat with toilet seal wax first then parafilm and lastly tanglefoot.
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Clark, That’s the absolute first I’ve ever hear of someone covering a graft in tanglefoot. Care to explain why you would use it? I’ve not found that fresh grafts have any insect pressure and tanglefoots texture does not really lend itself to being that great of a “sealer”. My first thought was to say it would just make a huge sticky mess.
Care to explain?
Does Tanglefoot deter slugs? If it did I might be tempted. I’ve had a wicked problem with slugs this spring.