Story goes…a few years ago I had a stream of ants threading through a new harrow delight pear tree. I had heard that crisco grease, applied in a ring around the trunk, would stop them. It worked. I noted that after a short while in the sun, the crisco hardened into a rubbery substance and lasted all summer and beyond. The tree has gone on to produce great pears. But that experience got me thinking that the crisco would be a great sealer around new grafts. So……yesterday I added a couple new pear varieties to some existing trees, liberally sealing them in crisco. Beautiful! Until this afternoon…. Something, critters, birds…had devoured every last bit of crisco, trashing the new grafts in the process. Hoping I can salvage the scions and redo them in a more proper fashion tomorrow. Lesson learned….
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Modeling clay apparently works well. I picked some up to try.
nice experiment! a shame it didn’t work out.
Thanks for sharing your experience. So we al can learn.
Lessons are rarely free. but often still worthwhile.
If your scions are getting to short for whip and tongue grafts, i can recommend chip budding. You get a lot of buds out of even a short scion. Do practice on some spare wood first though 
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