Any pictures?
It’s probably not the best grafting sealant,but I made my starting graft of the season and first ever bark graft,sealing the base with PLASTI DIP aerosol.I was going to coat the root stock with some Tanglefoot Tree Wound and Grafting Compound,but the stuff was dried up in the can.
I think @thecityman used it once and that seemed to work.Is that right,Kevin?Okay,we’ll see what happens.Something was needed quick.
1 Like
I can think of worse last minute solutions! At that point you could probably bust out the cheap Walmart primer paint just to reduce dessication.
1 Like
One of the simplest things I’ve tried is pure liquid latex from a pottery supply store. A kid’s watercolor paint brush works to apply. Texas A and M recommends yellow shellac.
No Brady, I’m very sorry to tell you that isn’t right. I did try the plasti-dip so your memory is good there. The terrible news is that it was Very, VERY unsuccessful! I am now very worried for your grafts and can only hope that my little, highly UNscientific results were not indicative of what you can expect. What I found was that it actually sort of dissolved the bark over the first month. By disolved, I mean that it sort of turned the bark into mush, almost as it it had been sprayed with acid or something. It looked somewhat normal (well, you couldn’t really get a good look because the plasti dip is covering it) but you could take your finger nail and scrape it like you would if you are checking to see if a tree is alive and what would happen is the bark would just sort of wipe off, as it it was barely attached. And when it wiped away it would do so in sort of a gooey mess. It was ugly my friend.
That being said, my experiment wasn’t a great one. I did all 3 tests at the same time and on the same kind of trees and same kind of graft. The grafts I was doing were just Splice grafts (not even whip and tongue- these were my early days of grafting).and both the root stock and the scion were quite small- smaller than a pencil. I doubt mature bark would fail like that. Looking at your photo, it appears to me that most of the area that will be in contact with the plasti-dip is on the cut area of your rootstock/existing tree and perhaps on its mature, tougher bark. I can’t see that being a big problem. Of course there is a little contact between the plastidip and the very bottom of you scionwood where your grafting tap wrap ends but before it goes under the bark of the tree. This is so minimal that it might be fine. I hope.
The fact that I did all of my grafts with the same scion wood at the same time means my results are not very good evidence of a problem. Perhaps my scionwood had started to rot in storage- i tended to put overly wet paper towels around the bottom of my stored scion wood back then. Or perhaps it was bad weather and the grafts just failed early and deteriorated in the way I described due to the fact that the plasti-dip held moisture under it causing the dead wood on the scion to rot faster than it otherwise would have. who knows. I’m obviously looking for reasons to give you hope and I really do think they are valid reasons, but I remember feeling quite sure than the plasti dip was the problem. As for the cause of that problem, I was convinced that it was a high level of petroleum. I can’t remember if I looked it up online or if it said it right on the can, but I remember learning somewhere that the stuff had a pretty high level of petroleum or petroleum distillates and I felt that was the problem. But I have no proof of that and I’m no scientist.
As usual, I’ve blathered on quite a bit, but my short answer is that I wouldn’t use plasti-dip on anymore grafts until you have time to see if it worked for you or it caused failure like mine. Again, there is so little contact on your graft shown in the photo with vital areas that I hope and think it will be fine.
I really wish you’d do a little testing for us though…find some thin tips on branches of live trees that you could afford to loose and cover about 8 inches back from the tip-, then wait a month and see if the bark along the 8 inch tip is damaged or destroyed. Just a thought.
Good luck man. Hope it works out but I advice caution on others until we hear back from you that it went well.
2 Likes
BTW…the credit (or maybe I should say blame! haha) actually goes to our friend Dave ( @speedster1 ) who gave me the idea back in 2017 with the following post
He may have even been joking but you can’t give a crazy idea to this group without someone trying it! haha (Me in that case).
ANd yes, I used the spray like you not the stuff in Dave’s photo
2 Likes
Well, a year has passed, and here’s my experiment results. I cut off my 6” diameter persimmon stump just above ground level, stuck some bark grafts around it, slathered the stump with old latex paint sediment as a sealant, and waited. I used about half of the scions I had, putting the rest back in the fridge. NOT ONE of the grafts took.
However, two months later a bunch of suckers came up around the stump, growing with great vigor. I cut out the extras so there were 6 shoots evenly spaced around the stump. When they reached about 2-1/2 feet tall, in mid-August I grafted the rest of my scions to them (snipping off the ends to expose fresh wood first). The majority apparently took within ten days. I carefully protected them over the winter with straw bales around an inner core of chicken wire against the voles.
Now, April 2022, it seems most of the grafts show bud swell, and I am optimistic. It seems that my bark graft failures can probably be attributed to all the grow-power going to the new stump shoots, not poisoning the first grafts with my experimental sealant.
2 Likes
Thanks for the clarification.As I was reading the first part of your post,petroleum came to mind.They might put it in there,like a solvent,to keep the rubber in a liquid consistency.
If the stuff works or doesn’t,that will be the last graft,it will be used on.
1 Like
I go with parafilm over the scion and graft union and Temflex friction tape overtop on the graft union only. If the union seems weak, I add a rubber band under the parafilm. That way I don’t have to pull as hard on the Temflex and displace the graft. The Temflex also prevents rubber band breakdown. It does have to be opened with a slice down the side after 8 weeks or so.
The tape is about $3.50 at Lowe’s.
1 Like
Yoda it has been my experience that persimmon stumps that large don’t take grafts well. On ones that large I have always just cut the stump off and let it sucker out and save the ones I want and graft to those the next spring. I have always had good luck that way.
1 Like
Thanks for that insight, Brett. Did you ever try to go a step farther, and separate the satellite suckers from the mother ship the following year?
No never went any farther.
Does the tanglefoot stuff degrade okay, or is there concern with it sticking around and causing problems/getting trapped in crotches and creating weak spots?
1 Like
It works fine, but my techniques have improved over the years. As the climate has got warmer, i changed my method somewhat because the wax started melting earlier
Tanglefoot is hard to beat, but it’s a mess. Try plastilina.
4 Likes
Thank you, Mr Clark.
1 Like
I’ve not heard of plastilina before. Do you find it does as well or better than wax?
1 Like
I just use plain parafilm taped over the exposed portion of the host sight.
4 Likes
That’s what I usually do now as well. I used to coat over the top with petroleum based pruning sealer. I did come to the conclusion that on some bark grafts the sealer would “ooze” down between cambiums and prevent callousing, however. I don’t want to mess around with trying to keep grafting wax warm when I’m field grafting.
1 Like