Bill, I saw this video made for Chinese TV about grafting fruit trees in mass scale. Equipment and chambers w modern controllers for temperature and humidity.  Once their grafts (not root grafts) were done, they put in this chamber for a while, them moved to another chamber that simulated planting in the ground, there was a lot of dipping in a white matter.  I shared this video with a couple of people here.. but now I cannot find the darn video.  I think the theory is the same, there is need of a certain temp. and humidity to facilitate the ligment of the two kinds.... and should be the same with root grafts... if any of you know or have that video, please post it or send me...
 Dennis, I use roots from my in ground 22 y.o. unknown tree, don't use tape, I use whatever I have rubber bands and plastic, something to press the two together and firmly in place, then I put them in the rooting chamber with moss until I see root growth.  I plant in cups, with the band in place.  I  remove the band upon transplanting to a larger gallon pot. 
 

First, I want to point out that I've made an extensive edit to post #19. I went back and added a detailed explanation of the pictures.

@ Dennis. Well, unfortunately, I didn't make any special note of the root stock used. I was in a hurry burying a bunch of my trees under mulch before a freeze came. While moving my potted trees, many of them had a large amount of roots growing out the bottom of the pots. I just trimmed a few "good looking" roots as I worked. Here's a partial list of possible candidates: HC, LSU Purple, Jon's Unk. Pastillere, VdB, and a couple of unknowns. So, sorry, not much help there.

Q #2: I"m planning to just pot most of mine up directly into whatever potting soil I have on hand. I am, however, storing some of mine temporarily in a sweater box with damp long fiber sphagnum - just until I get around to potting them up. But Grasa has mentioned allowing them to get callused up before potting them. I'm thinking either way should work.

Q #3: Rubber bands are a commonly used grafting material. They are often used because they will automatically rot away, dispensing with the need to go back and cut the material away later. I'm sure they will work just fine in this application too.

Just an extra note here on using rubber bands. I started out using rubber bands on some of my outdoor grafts. They seem to rot away a little too early for my liking though when exposed to the sun and other outdoor elements. So I switched to using plastic strips cut from old pieces of visqueen sheeting or plastic freezer bags. The only drawback to the plastic strips is the fact that you must go back and remove it before it starts to constrict the graft union as the tree grows.

About your Black Ischia. Yes, this might help to infuse some vigor into some varieties that seem to be slow to thrive. But, in my personal opinion, grafting directly onto an actual tree root stock may be the better option here. This is exactly what I have done once so far and I plan to do a couple more this season.

I intend to be a little more selective in choosing root stock this time though. I have a some suckers from a couple of local found unknowns that seem to be very vigorous growers in my local growing conditions. I have no concerns about sacrificing these because I'm sure the BI will pass FMV to them. But my hope is these rootstocks will be good growers in spite of the FMV. In turn the BI will, hopefully, grow with more vigor. We shall see.

The one BI that I had grafted, still looked good by this past season's end. No real super growth but it still looked decent. The rootstock was a real nice "Brown Turkey" that I had gotten from Tractor Supply in the spring. Bought it (and one other) exclusively to use for rootstock. Based on recent info though I may have to let some part of them grow out eventually just to see what they really are :-) .   

Bill, that's some great info. I actually got the 4 Brown Turkeys for root stock last year. One of them produced some amazing tasting figs and I don't recall which one it was. Oh well! My plan was to use the BT for root stock for my Black Ischia. The problem is they didn't grow enough to tinker with. I've never tried grafting but my goal is to graft using UCD cuttings this year.

Dennis. Once you learn to graft and put it into practice, you will be forever glad you did. I've linked this guy and his videos a couple of times, elsewhere, here on the forum. You may have seen his videos but just in case you haven't: http://www.youtube.com/user/stephenhayesuk

You'll have to scan through his channel to find the ones on grafting but they are some of the best I've seen.

Bass also has some good info on his site on how to do a whip and tongue graft. I haven't used whip and tongue yet on any of my grafts. But it does look like it would make a secure graft union: http://www.treesofjoy.com/content/whip-and-tongue-grafting

I guess I had missed this particular thread the first time around. But now I see where Grasa got the idea for root grafting: http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Root-grafting-6087171
 

Bill, I love Stephen Hayes! He's the master! I couple of years ago, I invested in an Omega Grafting Tool. I plan using it next month and I can't wait!

Dennis. Glad to know you're already familiar with Mr Hayes' channel. I watched a lot of other grafting videos on  on youtube, but it didn't take me very long to realize that I didn't need to go anywhere else.

Dennis, someone said that LSU Purpole is a strong rootstock and resistant to root knot nematode.  I happen to have a pretty vigorous tree of LSUP and also a few of sticks of Black Ischia and will give it a try on a couple.

Bill, I've not had a problem with grafting rubber bands breaking down too early when I've also covered them with Parafilm/Buddy-Tape/Nescofilm.  Nescofilm is my favorite material but no longer made but I stocked up. :)

I have a little video of some grafting using rubber bands and Nescofilm where I grafted some white sapote here:

Harvey. It makes sense that the rubber bands would last longer when wrapped with Parafilm. I just figured it was cheaper to save my parafilm for other applications and use the strips of plastic that I already had around the house. This way I'm also recycling some materials that I didn't necessarily have another use for :-) . 

Bill, Parafilm, Nescofilm, and Buddy-Tape (reportedly a made with Parafilm, used on millions of grafts each year by large California nurseries) all let air in but retains moisture and this is considered important to health of scions.

I'll have to check out those other name brands. Any idea if one is a better buy over the other Harvey?

Well, I tried it.  No one in the KC area has parafilm so I had to use a bandaging material called vetwrap or coban depending on the animal being repaired.  Any idea how long I should leave it on?  It probably wont break down on its own.

Good for you Bob,  I leave mine in the rooting chambers for a while until I know the roots are well in place. I only remove it from one when moving to cup. I put a note on the cup to check for bands and I remove them upon moving to larger pots.  Try finding compostable plastic bags, I am loving working with them...and they desintegrate upon being burried with moist.  they don't make things too tight, so I twist and wrap it several times.. seems to work better then those rubber bands.


UPDATE:  My very first root graft ( perhaps unkilled) or removed band too early!  I put the root half way up the cutting and removed the bands upon moving to the larger pot.. somehow the leaves died and the cutting started to dry out. so I opened and the big root I put in was not attached!  Trimmed everything and will see if the cutting has another life- with that, bands should stay in for as long as possible. 

Bill, I've bought 4" rolls of Parafilm M on eBay, the last I bought it.  I cut it into strips the width and length I want it for the particular job I've got at hand (i.e., on thicker scions I use wider strips and longer scions I use longer strips), the same as what I do with my Nescofilm.  Parafilm doesn't stretch enough before breaking for my taste.  Buddy-Tape is only sold by one guy up by Lake Tahoe (he supplies all the large nurseries as well) and I think it was maybe something like $30 for 6 one-inch rolls, but I'm really guessing since it's been a few years).  The 1" wide strips are wider than I like for some grafting (like my white sapote grafting in the video above), but I still used it recently just to re-evaluate it.  I like it a lot better than regular Parafilm as it stretches a long, about the same as Nescofilm.  Nescofilm is more clear after applying than Buddy-Tape so it makes it easy to see what buds are doing, etc.  For me, the cost isn't very significant for any of these products, maybe $.05 per graft, big deal.  My time and lack of frustrations is worth a whole lot more than that.  Buddy-Tape is pre-perforated at about 2" lengths (can be stretched to about 12" while applying) so that is an added convenience.  http://www.buddytape.com/contact.html is a link to inquire about the Buddy-Tape.  I saw some review of it on Amazon and I think the dealer had some complaints because he had one bad shipment (maybe got hot while in transit from Japan) and people complained because it was taking a while to get replacements or something like that.  Just not very realistic expectations, IMO.  I saw Duarte Nursery workers using it on their budding and they do something like 7 million plants a year.  Dave Wilson also uses it and they do a lot more.  I think these outfits certainly chose something that works best for their needs.

Grasa, how long was your root grafted to your plant before you took the tape off?

I did not have a good tracking record. I will do from now on... I don't know, it looked good, so I removed it. silly me.

Grasa and Bob. You should be able to leave the rubber bands, Parafilm, and compostable plastic on the graft indefinitely. I used rubber bands and Parafilm and I went ahead and potted mine right up. I don't expect to have any worries out of just leaving these two materials on the plant.

Harvey. Thanks for all the additional info on the Buddytape, etc. I'm sure I will be able to find one of these on eBay or Amazon when I get ready to purchase more. After hearing your description of  the Nescofilm, I'm a little disappointed that it's not made anymore.

 

I had told some people to stock up when I heard they were restricting purchases due to the product being discontinued.  I bought two more rolls even though I had bought two just a few months before.  I figure I have enough for maybe 7,000 grafts.  Maybe this might last the rest of my life and enough to get my son started, if he takes up the interest.  I did about 2,000 grafts one year but maybe only 100 last year.  If I get my act together I'll do a few hundred this year.