I had been doing a rubber, followed bu a total parafilm M wrap on my peaches. Is it way overkill? I have several hundred to bud this year, plus we do 2-3 buds per stock. I recall reading so.eplace that rubbers are sufficient on their own but i don’t recall where. Saving those 20 seconds per graft might add up if its arbitrary.
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Fruitnut’s tutorial might help.
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I’ve had very good success doing T buds with only budding rubbers. That’s on many species. Commercial grafters doing thousands don’t use any thing more. And we all leave the stub of the petiole exposed. You’d think that would dry it out. But maybe the abscission layer forms quickly and cuts off water flow via that route.
Doing chip buds I have found another covering is needed like parafilm or buddy tape. I don’t understand why. But with chip buds many use a full covering.
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Instead of starting a new thread, I just thought I’d tag on to this one. I’m looking to start using budding rubbers for bench grafting and chip/T budding, but am wondering what size(s) I should get to start and what is a good source to buy them. If possible, I’d like to just buy one size to start to keep the cost down, but maybe that is a mistake if I should be using fatter ones for bench grafting and smaller for budding?
Anyway, suggestions of sizes and places to buy are welcome.
I like the postal size from the dollar store. = cheep / available
They usually break down from sun exposure in about 2 weeks and fall off., which I find is long enough for the callus to heal .
I always use parafilm , and usually just parafilm.
Only adding a rubber to things that need extra support,/ need pulled tighter.
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What Hort says. But if you do want to buy budding rubbers I’d get the 1/4" size for budding. I like the 1/2" for cleft, w&t, etc. as you can pull the pieces together so well with it.
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@marknmt and @Hillbillyhort thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of trying with something cheaper at least to see if I like them, since a quick search on Amazon, A.M. Leonard, etc. for budding rubbers showed some pretty expensive options, although they were for very large quantities for those prices.
I just wasn’t sure if the “legit” ones held up better in the sunlight, etc. or had other special qualities.
For reference, I’ve mostly been using the rubber electrical splicing tape (temflex) some sometimes regular plastic electrical tape which I generally have to cut away by mid summer. There is always a layer of parafilm under that. I’m thinking the budding rubbers will be easier to cut off or will be faster to just break down since there is no adhesive holding them on the parafilm.
Very true.
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I’ve been using the electrical rubber splicing tape on my grafts by using just 1/2" and stretching in the other direction. I got a much thinner layer and actually had to redo it on a few grafts because the rootstock was budding through (blasted quinces and hawthorns 
). I got it off easy enough to cause zero damage - to my surprise. I’ll test it on bud-grafts next.
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A word of caution.
Not all rubber bands degrade at the same rate exposed to sun.
Some will last too long , girding , killing a graft , unless removed.
Others ,fall off in a timely manner.
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When I started grafting, back in the mid-1990s, I used 1/4" and 3/8" red rubber budding strips… at this point I can’t recall the nursery/orchard supply place I bought from, but they became unavailable, and then the supplier went out of business. In a pinch, I bought a bag of #64 rubber bands at OfficeMax. They work just fine, and photodegrade over a period of weeks, so pose no girdling threat. I’ve been using those for at least the last 15 years, with good success. I suppose for smaller stuff, like T-budding, you could go with a smaller-width rubber band like a 32 or 33.
A couple of years back, I bought a bag of rubber bands, online, from WalMart… disaster… they would photodegrade and come unraveled in less than a week.
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