I've always felt that I needed the good mechanical pull that a budding rubber provides, and to keep it from drying out I think it needs to be sealed with parafilm or wax. Parafilm is my first choice because it breathes a little. But it's not enough by itself to make me feel secure! I used the Ace rubber tape this year on clefts and felt like it worked really well. Rubber tape or bands or rubbers all seem good to me. I think that if you use the wide budding rubbers or tape and overlap thoroughly then the parafilm/wax precaution is probably redundant, but it's cheap redundancy and I do it. I use wide and long rubbers also because it's easier to wrap them off- you have so much to work with, and they're cheap enough that you can afford to cut off excess. Like MiHiGirl I'm in the Rockies, but not at a mile high! We're at 3200 ft, give or take a couple of feet. But it's definitely an arid environment: we get about 12-13 inches total precip per year.

I had an apricot die a slow death this year. I didn't cut it down because it was still green under the bark and the plum roots looked good. I wanted to see if it would come out of its coma. Just a few weeks ago, however, the roots suddenly started to sucker profusely. As expected, the tree was now dry and fungus was starting to grow on the bark at the base. I wish I had just cut the thing down in spring to give the roots enough time to replenish energy from the suckers. Now I have to hope it will have enough sucker time to survive the winter.

I was told to graft peach when temps reach at least 80F and leafed out and not before by Olpea who has over 300 peach trees. Here is what he told me That's really the challenge with peach wood, trying to keep it as dormantas possible. It is some of the first wood to break dormancy in therefrigerator, and the last wood that is grafted. In other words,something like apples stay dormant a long long time in the fridge, but also are grafted earlier than peaches, so apples are no problem keeping dormant until they are ready to graft. Likewise with pears. Peaches are the opposite, and so can be very difficult to keep dormant.Try to keep your refrigerator as close to 32F as possible. It won't hurt the scionwood to let it have some minor freezing b/t 30 and 32, as long as it's not really prolonged freezing. Prolonged freezing of the wood willdry it out and possibly kill it.Wait till your peaches fully leaf out before you try to graft, and makesure the next week has projected highs of 80F or more. Don't try to do budding for spring grafting peaches. Budding works fine in the fall, when using soft wood cuttings, but it doesn't work near as well in the spring,with hard wood cuttings.In the spring, use some form of scion grafting. It doesn't matter what type of graft you use, just not budding. I use about a 2 or 2.5" piece of scionwood with 2 or 3 buds on it. If the scionwood does start to sproutin the fridge, don't panic, just try to keep it cold and continue to waitfor the right temps outside, before grafting. I've still had good luck grafting sprouted wood, as long as the temps are right. Make sure youtape your graft connections well, and make sure you wrap the whole graftin parafilm. The second step is especially important if you're grafting with scionwood which has already sprouted.

Most rootstocks I've seen aren't tall enough to bud or graft 3 onto. If you did, you would get all 3 starting very close to the ground. I would just graft (whip, cleft, etc) one onto it initially, then graft the other varieties on when the main variety has grown enough. You may need to cut it when it reaches a height you want the trunk to branch out at (could be as low as 2-3' for an open center peach). So, I would think it would proceed like: 1- graft variety #1 2- wait a few months until the central leader (#1) reaches 2-3', then pinch off growth. 3- Let 3 main scaffolds grow off, at roughly even spacing, pinching off everything else. 4- Depending on your growing season, you may be able to bud the 2 other varieties late in the summer. If not, graft them the next spring. I'd suggest keeping the remaining scaffold (with #1) in a more Northern position, to avoid shading the 2 new grafts. Note that I haven't actually done this- most of my multi-grafts are built onto (more) mature trees. So if anyone with actual experience chimes in, I yield to their expertise.