Thank you @Bradybb and @SpokanePeach, I will definitely do that. Maybe that’s the reason for not being to stretch, it was too thick.
Btw, I just received an email from Home Depot that they are shipping me another tape. So I have another one for backup.
Not too thick, too wide.
I like to think of it as a stickier budding strip (which also works great).
For sure Mark. It is a temp thing. In cooler weather one has to be more careful to keep from breaking it. In cooler weather, I stretch a little at a time. In other words, I kind of tease it along - stretch a little piece at a time. In warmer weather, I grab the whole piece and stretch it all.
Parafilm is sort of the same way, except that when it gets old it really wants to break. So for old parafilm, you have to stretch little bites at a time to get it stretched out.
Yep. That’s exactly how I do it! Not overlapping the Temflex much.
Thank you.
Wanted to mention. If you try splitting the tape, just split a little at a time. In other words, take a razor knife and carefully go around the roll a couple times. The first time around cuts a couple layers, then the second time around it cuts another couple layers (Be very careful with this step, as it takes a good amount of pressure to get through the layers of rubber tape, and you could cut yourself badly.) After going around the roll a couple times you’ll end up with about 4 layers of tape which is 3/8" wide. Then for small grafts just peel off a couple inches or so, pre-stretch it, then apply to your graft.
Part of the reason your graft looks like a dirt dobber’s nest is because it’s harder to stretch 3/4" wide tape. It will stretch, it’s just harder. I was trying to remember how much I stretch mine, and I was thinking about 3X the length of the unstretched. But I looked on the 3M website and they claim it will stretch 700%.
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00017540/
I’m pretty sure I’ve never been able to stretch it that far. I still occasionally break pieces when pre-stretching. Much more often when I first started using it.
Also the rubber tape won’t stick to itself very good if it’s wet. But even vinyl tape doesn’t stick very good wet, and vinyl isn’t nearly as nice to work with as the rubber Temflex.
Also, if you have some spare time and are interested, here is an old thread which discusses peach grafting. I didn’t contribute much, because most of my peach propagation is from budding. But there were a lot of good contributions, especially from Scott and Bob. The thread also demonstrates there are many successful ways to graft.
All this talk of parafilm. I gave up on that years ago. It splits and cracks. Buddy tape is much superior. You get what you pay for.
You’re referring to these?
Ok, so the One Green World product is $39.95 for a roll of 900 perforated pieces.
The Buddy Tape brand name manufacturer is in Japan and produces several products.
Other sizes and knockoffs are offered at Amazon.com buddy Tape.
A number of those are not Buddy tape.
The real stuff isn’t cheap
The little croissant Templex is now fused, now I know how this works.
But all of my Parafilm grafts for the jujube seem to take. Parafilm is much cheaper than buddy tape.
True, Amazon’s search engine requires one to pay attention to titles and beware of knockoffs.
It appears that A.M. Leonard has the real deal but compared to OGW it is less than 1/2 the amount of strips for almost twice the cost.
I certainly have no idea if the link to the OGW Buddy tape is the cheapest option out there, I just used it as an example. I wouldn’t doubt you can find it much cheaper somewhere other than OGW. The last time I searched for the stuff I couldn’t find it at a price that made me willing to switch from parafilm
When I was shopping around last week for Parafilm, I found the brand name product was far more expensive than the knockoffs when comparing widths and lengths.
I also noticed today that some advertisers use both “parafilm” and “buddy tape” in their product listing.
The One Green World link above is the type I’m referring to. And their endorsement echos mine. Or mine echo theirs.
I cut the Templex tape in half and stretch it before I wrap my Sumo scion. It’s a bit better looking, not as bulky.
Maybe it was explained somewhere on this thread , but why do you put the parafilm all over the scion
I don’t know really why either. But I noticed with my fig cuttings that I wrap in Parafilm and potting them, they are budding out, the ones with terminal buds are not. So there must be some benefit.
