Gotcha. With parafilm covering everything I don’t worry about water at all. We’ve had some gully washers shortly (and sometimes consistently) after grafting and there’s never been any problems on my grafts from water. As far as temps go, a few years ago we had a weird spring where it went from 60’s as a high to 90’s for a solid week. The rootstocks in the field were starting to push leaves so I went ahead and grafted right ahead of that week in the 90’s. Just did my usual grafting and all the grafts took just fine. If I was using parafilm alone and no rubberband over the union I might worry about UV exposure, but my rubberbands cover the whole union. Other people’s mileage may vary, and I’d be glad to hear of scenarios where people experienced failures so we can be prepared.
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I have had this effect previously. If I watered them ahead of time, they did well. If I forgot to water them, the graft died, but not necessarily the plant.
John S
PDX OR
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Thanks good info! I grafted when it got hot again but this year has been very cold. Today it was in the low 50’s and felt colder from the wind. Now it’s going to rain again and be colder tomorrow so I covered with some plastic bags and cut holes below the graft union jic. The only few grafts I lost this year were from water getting in. I have rubber and wax now for the unions next season.
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