I can do them about as fast as I splice graft. It does slow me down to have to open up the bark and place the bud in there. And I take a bit extra time to get the wood out from the backside of the bud, but like anything, it gets faster with practice. The wrapping is pretty easy, as once the bud is in the little pocket, it doesn’t go anywhere.
I’ve read before that a team of two professional budders can field bud 1000 trees/day. I’m no where near that fast.
I just use a single blade razor and make one long cut all the way along the bottom of the branch- cutting completely through the tape but into the branch as little as possible. Takes half a second. The tape works it’s way off slowly over time, and continues to provide decent protection for a while after it’s cut. I can see a thin scar in the branch if I look for it once the tape falls off, but it’s barely there. The razor makes such a clean cut that it seems to heal right away. Can cut maybe 20 branches cleanly before I need to flip the razor to the other side.
Here’s a pic of one of my pear grafts from mid-February the tape is already coming off by itself. I’m sure all the rain we’ve had recently has helped it along…
Glad we are not in professional competition with them.
I just read two days ago about wrapping tape, like electrician tape, too tight; so I lightened up a bit yesterday. Then later, I checked on my old ‘rescue’ apple tree and noticed that most of the new shoots were very vigorous but last year’s grafts were not. I had used the green garden tape and tied them up tight…too tight, I found out. I cut the tape off and sho’nuff they were squeezed up corset-like in the middle. I saw a roll of that green stuff not long ago that said it wouldn’t do that, but my roll from two years ago did not say that. Maybe they’ve changed their ways. I gotta say, one layer may have been OK, but that’s not what I did.
Seedy,
I wrapped my green garden tape tightly, too. However, I cut it off after the graft took. I go around in late summer cutting the tape off. If you leave it too long, it will girdle the graft.
I didn’t get girdling but I did get warty excrescence below the graft under the tape
I volunteer to have the competition at my orchard and will volunteer all scions and rootstocks lol! I’m pretty slow at field grafting, it took me over a month in my spare time to do around 600 grafts last year. This year I’m running way behind and hope to catch up soon.
That’s the answer…go back and cut it off. Fortunately, I do have parafilm under everything. A few of my grafts were way up in the branches…I threw a rope over the branch and would pull it down and stick a few scions on it and let it back up. No bird-sitting or deer-munching problems, but I gotta do the same to remove the green/black tape. My current work is all at normal height, so far.
I always wrap my grafts with ax tape first and then put electrical tape over that. Never have that problem off pulling the bark off.
But it’s one more step, and I’ve never killed a graft by accidentally removing the outer bark. It seems to only be a problem when bark is slipping, when I remove tape in early spring it usually comes unravels without damaging the bark, but as I said, the damage has yet to be lethal- HERE. Under harsher suns results may vary.
@alan this is a very old thread but so relevant to the situation I’m in. I just used plain vinyl electric tape to do a lot of bud and cleft grafts and loved it because it cinched the grafts tight and was easy to work with (I covered in parafilm after). When I finished it occurred to me that in a few months I might have issues removing the tape due to the adhesive. In the years since this post, do you still use electric tape for grafting?
I use electrical tape for grafting, but I flip it over so the non-adhesive side is against the bark.
Depending on how strong the adhesive is, electrical tape can sometimes pull off and peel the bark, especially when grafting onto young rootstock.
Peaches and plums have no difficulty stretching the tape but apples are occasionally girdled by it- but if you are watching it happens gradually so isn’t some huge threat. I can unwrap the grafts the spring after if I do it early or after bark slipping but you can also use a razor knife to make a single vertical slice through the tape right to the bark. Cutting the bark has never led to any noticeable consequences for me- it quickly heals. Even when I’ve unwrapped it and taken the outer layer of bark with the tape, the grafts have always survived. It does still make me nervious, though.
Thanks @alan and @no07. Reversing the electric tape is clever, I’ll try it. Or I’ll put the parafilm on first. The electric tape was just so satisfying to use as you could see how tight it got the graft on the rootstock. And I’m doing these in the field where the branches I’m grafting onto are pretty thick sometimes.
I make a couple hundred grafts a year and only use electric tape. I’ve never lost a graft to girdling.
Good to know! It’s just the bark peeling off when I take the tape off that would make me want to try something else.
I make several vertical cuts and pull the tape UP in sections, not sideways. Works for me.
Good tip, thanks. Will remember this when I remove the tape later this year. Overall, I want to make grafting as hassle free as possible. I’d prefer a system that has the same ease of use as tape that I can neglect and don’t have to remove anything in future. Parafilm alone worked ok for me with figs last year and disintegrates over time but I didn’t feel it held the graft tight enough.
Someone (I think scottsmith) has a trick with parafilm to enable you to pull harder on it: After wrapping to seal the graft roll up a few inches into a rope and continue wrapping. I haven’t done it a lot but the few times I’ve tried it it’s worked.
