Mighty Matos

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by harveyc

Carolyn, I already wrote that I did not plant sufficient numbers to have statistically valid conclusions. That was primarily because I was trying so many varieties to begin with and just grafted one or two each of some varieties. Still, I believe differences are readily evident with the varieties I've described. Next year I plan to do much more grafting and will be able to do something more meaningful and I will try Celebrity as well.

I've looked for the thread you mentioned before but have not found it. If you could provide a link to it, it would be most appreciated.

I happened to be near Google so entered the words Dr. David Francis tomato grafting and came up with a lovely long list of links to grafting in general, some of which I already had in my faves on the difference between Maxifort and BEaufort as to usage, at least I think they were there since I sure didn't look at ALL of them.

You'll see several links with his name and Celebrity mentioned at the same time.

Lots of good info in some of those links and for anyone interested in grafting it might be well worth the time to take a look.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&gs_nf=1...iw=757&bih=403



Finally, I said controls were helpful since you were pretty direct above in saying that this or that variety did show a difference with grafting and I was asking how you knew that if there weren't controls and all done in the same season.

Just trying to be helpful.

[harveyc]

Okay, thanks, I'll read those. I didn't search in Google, I was searching for your post here in the forum where you had written about it before.

I didn't say there weren't controls, Carolyn. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but you are saying something I didn't write. I didn't do sufficient numbers to have a statistically valid trial (I have performed large trials with other crops on my farm). For instance, two of the six Brandywine (Sudduth's strain) I am growing are on Maxifort and the others are on their own roots. The grafted plants are more vigorous and producing more fruits than the non-grafted. One of six Black Krim are grafted and the same can be said for it. I already wrote that one of the first 12 SunGold I planted was grafted and it is also more vigorous and productive. I expect there are some varieties where there is not much or any difference. The above are cases where I've been picking fruit and noted a plant was more vigorous so I searched for the tag and saw it was a grafted plant.

[Mlm1]

Carolyn, thanks for all the great information. I have a fun picture of grafted and an ungrafted "control" growing in soil infected with fusarium. Not exactly the same as we were talking about in the thread (growth in healthy soil) but it shows the ungrafted next to the grafted. I meant for this picture to go in B54's fusarium thread and will go post it there later today but since you mentioned a control I couldn't resist. There are 18 grafted plants and one ungrafted.

Marla

[Mlm1]

I just checked the picture and all of the green behind the ungrafted plant is a bush growing through the fence. I will cut it back for a picture for the fusarium thread.
Marla

[Mlm1]

Also, Harvey, I am looking forward to your results on the grafted vs ungrafted in normal soil. I predict the grafted will all be noticeably larger/ more productive in our long growing season but i will wait for your results. I hope you got that wonderful rain last night. It never rains here in the summer so I was so surprised by it.
Marla

[harveyc]

I did not get any rain here last night but I did see lightning off in the distance. The rain would have been very costly to me due to reduced value of my 127 acres of alfalfa which has been cut and about ready to be baled.

I will try to take photos of some comparisons when I get a chance but expect to have a bit of a problem due to the tight spacing between my rows (squeezed in between a drainage ditch and the last row of my pomegranate trial orchard). I have 47 acres (besides my rented ground) but still have a difficult time finding room to plant a garden or anything new. If I only had a bit more will power and didn't keep adding more varieties of everything I grow (chestnuts, pomegranates, white sapote, pitaya/dragon fruit, figs, feijoa, bananas, citrus, etc.).

[Heritage]

Harvey,

That's an impressive percent of successful grafts, (24 of 25) especially for your first attempt. Thanks for your impressions - I'm looking forward to your final results this year, and to your work with other rootstock next year. (Disk those banana plants under and plant tomatoes )

Steve

[harveyc]

Steve, I do a lot of grafting of trees and am accustomed to attaining success rates of close to 100% but was pleasantly surprised with my first attempt at tomato grafting. Wish I could say the same for my effort in melon grafting done a couple of months later, but I failed miserably...0%!!! LOL

[carolyn137]

Harvey, I'm sorry if I misinterpreted what you said in that post.

I was going to search here at Tville but as I said, was at Google and any thread from Tville would be there, I imagined, I didn't see it but some of the other links I felt were excellent.

So posted the general Google link.

[harveyc]

Thanks, Carolyn. I did tag all of my plants today. While still not a statistically valid comparison, I did note that of my six Brandywine (Sudduth's) plants, three were on their own roots, one was on Maxifort, one on Colosus (an inexpensive rootstock variety from Johnny's I just threw in for the heck of it), and one was on Better Boy. All three grafted plants are more vigorous than the non-grafted plants. I don't believe I'll be able to keep yield data from these separate as I don't think I can afford the time to handle the production from these six plants separately.

After searching some for work done by David Francis I ended up watching this webinar presentation done earlier this year. It's about 74 minutes long:

http://www.extension.org/pages/25443...uction-webinar

Beginning at 17:39 in this video David makes the following comment in a video presentation on tomato grafting:
"I also want to make the point that for some applications commercial hybrids may be an appropriate rootstock ... this is especially the case if you are growing heirloom tomatoes that have no resistance to common soil-borne diseases."

Later on there is a chart comparing growth and yields from different rootstock. I forgot to write the information down as I was viewing it but I believe Maxifort showed a 40% yield increase, an Ohio rootstock variety showed a bit more, and Beaufort showed 60% more.

At about 28:40 David begins discussion of a field trial comparing performance differences using both Cherokee Purple and Celebrity as scions. At around 35:00 yield results reflect that Celebrity yield more total and more marketable fruit when grown on other rootstock. At 37:40 the quality of fruit is discussed and fruit grown on grafted plants was of similar quality (i.e., soluble solids, etc.) as non-grafted (they were concerned that they weren't just producing more fruit but of lower quality).

Yields varied considerably with different rootstocks with yields ranging from 2 kilograms to 6 kilograms per plant.

At about 38:25 a table is viewed but is of poor resolution. However, it appears that Celebrity grafted on Celebrity rootstock yielded better than grown on it's own roots (mentioned in the Q&A session near the end that it was not statistically different and they can only speculate that a wound response might increase fruiting) which, in turn, did better than when grafted onto Maxifort which did better than Beaufort. (I wonder if there are any compatibility issues at play here?) There are few rootstocks that has a statistical difference although numerically superior.

At about 43:25 the effects that Marla mentioned earlier are reflected: production on the Celebrity plants grafted onto Maxifort and Beaufort exceed production on non-grafted plants. This becomes very significant in high tunnel growing situations which have a very long growing season (I wonder if this is also the case in outdoor growing situations with long growing season as the "late season" period being discussed in the presentation is the sixth and 7th week of harvest).

Yields of field grown Cherokee Purple was not discussed but is examined in the high tunnel growing situation at about 50:00. Grafted CP were significantly larger and more productive than non-grafted plants. There were also irrigation trials conducted in the high tunnel environment. Standard irrigation produced 6.4 tons/acre on grafted CP and 4.6 tons on non-grafted. Deficit irrigation has much less of an influence on the grafted CP, reducing yields to 6.1 tons vs. 3.6 tons on non-grafted CP.

After a few attempts, I figured out the URL shown at 53:00, it's http://www4.ncsu.edu/~clrivard/Resources.html The second link on this page shows different rootstocks, resistance characteristics, and their commercial sources.

At about 1:13 in the Q&A session someone asked if David would recommend Beaufort or Maxifort. He said that for field and high tunnel growing conditions their studies have consistently shown Beaufort to perform better. Maxifort is a bit too vigorous and sends out advantagious growth. Note: I planted about 16 of my grafted Maxifort and only have suckers coming from one of them but suckering of rootstock is something David mentioned a few times in the presentation.

Other than David Francis making a mention of grafting Celebrity onto Celebrity in the above presentation, I did not find anything online where he presents data of using Celebrity as a rootstock for other tomatoes (i.e., heirlooms). I did find other forum comments (including this thread) where it's reported he said that Celebrity was as good as other rootstocks, but I have not found any original source of this being reported. His comments in the preceding paragraph would seem to indicate (to me) that he has found otherwise since he's recommending Beaufort.

[carolyn137]

Harvey, I'm glad I did mention Dr. Francis to you and you found that some of his information was useful to you.

He is a breeder of hybrids and I don't think I ever said that Celebrity might be useful as a rootstock for heirlooms, just that it was an alternative to the much more expensive rootstock seeds out there and that for him it worked well with what he was doing.

So it seems to me that maybe it's time to possibly work with Celebrity as regards some heirloom varieties, based on what you reported above, but if not, then stick with the Maxifort and Beaufort that you have been working with.

Grafted plants are quite popular in Australia, that I know, but not that popular here in the US right now b'c of the increased cost. And some of our Aussie friends have said that they no longer buy grafted plants b'c the increased cost is not matched by increased disease tolerance.

I'm wondering how the grafted plants that Territorial Seeds has been offering are working for folks. I do stop by several message sites and read but so far haven't seen any feedback about those ones Territorial is offering at their website for the past two years or so.

I think that grafted plants in the US are of greatest use right now for commercial greenhouse growing and hopefully that might change in the future as regards home growers and grafted heirloom varieties.

[harveyc]

Yes, thanks, Carolyn, for the suggestion. I wrote to Dr. Francis to ask for his thoughts on the implications of a long growing season here in my location (should be picking fruit for six months) to see if his suggestions might be different. He was interested in possibly having others conduct trials in more than the three locations (OH, TN, MN) he was already evaluating his rootstock varieties but I don't know if those will continue into next year.

Some of the photos shown in his webinar showed significant benefits to using grafted plants in field settings so I think it's certainly something that more people should give a try.

The increased vigor of grafted plants did seem to delay fruit set slightly. In the irrigation deficit trial it showed that the grafted plants that were exposed to deficit irrigation did begin fruiting earlier so that might be something useful in trying in the beginning of the season (but applying full water needs once fruiting commences).

[Mlm1]

Wow, what great I formation. Thanks Harvey and Carolyn.

The longer growing season does make a big difference. If all my seed is started the same time, the grafted get set back about 6 weeks. My plants have been in the ground since mid April (so over 3 months) and the grafted finally caught up to ungrafted (I am referring to my ungrafted planted in healthy soil not in fusarium infected as in the picture above) and are now starting to look much larger. For the next 5 weeks the grafted will probably double in size so for the rest of the growing season they will be my main fruit producers. My daughter is an organic farmer in Montana and last year she grafted 150 of her 400 heirloom tomatoes that are grown in a greenhouse. They were just starting to catch up in size when it froze so she did not think it was worth the extra labor. If she started the grafts earlier she would have to heat the greenhouse 6 weeks longer (and in the middle of the winter) so again it would probably not be worth the extra heating costs.

As far as disease tolerance I think my picture says it all. Five years ago I planted all ungrafted in that corner and every one of them looked like the dead plant in the picture. I considered Solorizing the whole area but decided on grafting and I have been able to grow beautiful plants there ever since. I have a friend in town growing both grafted and ungrafted in fusarium infected soil. I stopped by last week and his garden is a little behind mine so his ungrafted look a little better but they will all die in the next few weeks and his grafted are just starting to take off. I will try to get a picture of that garden also. He has 26 dead/dying ungrafted and 8 strong healthy grafted plants.

Marla

Edit to correct comment
I think it is incorrect to say the grafts are 6 weeks behind. They produce about 4 to 6 weeks later than my plants kept to single stems but the plants kept to single stems produce earlier than unpruned plants whether they are grafted or not.