Results and thoughts on rootstock varieties

[b54red]

I am starting to notice a few things about plants behavior on different rootstock varieties and would love to hear the things others are finding out with their grafting experiments.

Some but not all of the indeterminate heirloom varieties grafted onto determinate rootstock are growing smaller plants. I used a determinate Floralina in a good number of my first successful grafts. Many of the scions are not getting as large as I would expect but they are setting fruit very well. The most notable is my Brandywine Sudduth's on Floralina. The plant is barely 5 feet tall when it should be at least 7 feet by now but it is setting more fruit than I have gotten in the past from it and it is easier to manage. The other ones that are noticeably smaller are Giant Belgium on Tasti-Lee, and Omar's Lebanese on Tasti-Lee. Several of the scions have grown at least as large as normal on the determinate rootstock and one is even bigger and that is T-6 on Floralina. All have fruit set far beyond normal for me. I'm wondering if the determinate rootstock has any influence on the early heavy fruit set I have seen on almost all of the plants grafted onto determinate rootstock.

One thing I have noticed on my grafts that were done on the very vigorous rootstock I call the fluke, is the hearts are so vigorous that from a distance they don't even look much like hearts. They are not nearly so wispy as I usually see and are needing much more pruning to keep them open.

Which rootstock are you having the best luck with when it comes to accepting the grafts? And which scions seem to be the least successful when grafting. For me the two rootstocks that have accepted the grafts the best have been my fluke tomato and Floralina closely followed by Amelia. The one I have had the least success with is Multifort. KBX and Golden Ponderosa have been very hard to graft for me and Cherokee Purple and Prudens Purple were the easiest.

I know it is early in the season and I'm sure I will find different things about many of my grafts that I am not aware of now so I will try to keep posting my findings. I am still grafting and intend to keep doing it till I run out of plants to graft to. Right now I am starting suckers that I prune off to use for grafting later. I am limited in my rootstock selection to varieties that show a strong resistance to fusarium wilt so many of the possible rootstock are not feasible for me to use; but I would still like to hear what others are finding out as the season progresses.

Bill