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["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

I am so thrilled to have stuff popping out everywhere.  I think two things made all the difference.  One was the fact that I got hold of some good grafting tape again, something called "Buddy Tape" that I got in a big nursery supply store in McMinnville.  It's like the Parafilm I used years ago before I started buying that horrible stuff from Fedco.  Now and then I pull a peice off the Fedco roll to try to cover a small spot and it's so hard to work with that I want to scream and throw it away.  Worst of all, I think of all the careful work I have done and had grafts fail, this has been going on for years now.  (That thought makes me want to jump up and down on it.)  You'd think that being thicker than the good brands, that Fedco stuff would at least last longer in the elements, but nope, it doesn't.  I know I'm not that terrible a grafter, even in the drought last year I had grafts and buds that sprouted and then died as the tape split and curled back.   

    The other thing that helped was that Lucky and someone else, (the Fluffy Bunny, or Ed?) said to use masking tape to cover grafts.  I did, and I really think it helped prolong the life of the Buddy tape.  I was creative in how I tore and stuck the masking tape so that the buds could slip out past overlaps, in case it didn't break down fast enough. 

    Some of the pear scions I ordered were beginning to sprout when they were cut, and though the grafts took well, all the ones I'd budded seemed to have failed.  The chips took fine, but the buds died.  Now I see that they are capable of putting out secondary buds and I'm feeling much better about them.  I had been transplanting a tree from last year with a dormant bud on it, knocked the bud off and figured I'd have to regraft it.  Later it sprouted anyway, much to my delight.     Donna