"The nice weather in Florida let me to try this technique over the winter. I just used plain old Elmer's glue. My first couple tries didn't go so well and I lost most of the caps. After a few adjustments, things are getting better. Here a few points that worked for me - I know some have already been mentioned:
- Don't apply the glue until the bud is fully mature and a day or two from opening. Any earlier and it will drop the bud.
- Use a small amount of glue on the end of the bud - just enough to keep the petals from opening. When I encapsulated the entire bud, it dropped every time. This might be because Elmer's is not as elastic, as mentioned in a previous post, or maybe it's a lack of air.
- I had much greater success (in the 90% range) with this method on smaller flowered varieties...but can't explain why.
- I also had more luck when I culled some of the other buds. It seemed to encourage the plant to set fruit on my isolated flowers.
I don't keep tons of seed so I typically glue several buds on different branches and/or plants and count on 50-75% actually setting fruit."
