North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 11:55 AM 1/25/2004 -0500, Doc L. wrote:
> Practically anyone who work in a medical laboratory can slip you a sample of
> Parafilm.  We used to buy it by the gross.  It shouldn't be as expensive as
> it is sold for by nursery suppliers.  It's "wunerful" for grafting, budding,
> etc. but some of the best grafters I know use masking tape.

The guys who taught me nut tree grafting used Parafilm.  As Doc indicated, 
it is pretty inexpensive - I think you can purchase a 2 inch X 250 foot 
roll for under $20; That'll do THOUSANDS of grafts.
I especially like it for doing 3- and 4-flap grafts - It works nicely to 
hold those 'banana' flaps in place until I can get a rubber wrapped around 
everything, and I can get better alignment, because I don't have to apply 
much pressure to get it in place..

I see that they've developed a newer formulation for use specifically in 
grafting:http://www.2spi.com/catalog/supp/parafilm-grafting.shtml , but 
I'll probably just keep on using good old Parafilm-M.



Lucky Pittman
USDA Zone 6
Hopkinsville, KY