Care of plants after budding or grafting
AFTER budding or grafting, plants should be kept in a shady and moist place, and the best place to do so is either in a greenhouse or shadehouse, as these structures provide the ideal conditions for maximizing growth and protection against environmental stresses such as water deficit and high temperatures, as well as insects and diseases. The amount of water is controlled by irrigation. Water should be provided every day to the plants, but excess watering may be as damaging as the lack of it. Under cloudy conditions and high humidity, the evaporative demand tends to be lower dispensing the need for frequent irrigation. Under these conditions observe the amount of moisture that still is left in the bag or root trainers. If they are dry, water the plants again.

Water should be applied directly to the soil, thus avoid wetting the leaves of the plants which favours incidence of diseases. If water cannot be applied directly to the soil, irrigate during the morning so that mid-day stress will evaporate water from the leaves, which will allow for sufficient moisture retention the bag to aid plant growth.

Temperature is a factor in plant propagation that must be controlled. High temperatures will dry the plants too fast, beyond replenishment and eventually plant death may occur. In sophisticated glasshouses, heating and cooling systems work together to keep temperature under control. Usually these glasshouses have a computer system that keeps temperature controlled according to operator settings. Another less sophisticated way to control temperature is the use of shading net. It comes in several different percentages of shading with 36% and 55% shade netting being recommended for most nurseries under tropical conditions. The shading net reduces the amount of heat load underneath the netting, keeping optimum temperatures, and avoiding high fluctuations that could affect plant growth.

Fertilization is important to nursery plants, however too much of it can be damaging for the young plant. If a good soil mix or propagation media is being used there will be no need to fertilize the plants until they go to the field. Most of the decisions for fertilizing the plants will be made on the observations by the nurseryman. Experimenting with different sources and rates of fertilizer would make it perfect for each species being propagated. As a general rule, the use of three kilos of the formula 10-10-10+FTE/m3 of soil mixture works well for hard wood fruit trees such as mango, avocados, sour sop, sugar apple, guavas, etc.

It is important to keep record of all plants being propagated. A small tag attached to each plant with rootstock and scion name, date of rootstock seeding and grafting, and a codename of the nurseryman that did the grafting. In a recording book, the origin of the rootstock and the scion should be recorded. With this information it would be possible to trace back and identify the source of any problem that may arise with the nursery plants. Organize the nursery keeping the species separated from each other, and within the specie, organize them by rootstock, scion, and date of grafting.