2017 Grafting thread: Open to all

[slugworth]

Tried to graft onto a sugar plum plant but failed.
It was a rare one with 2 main stems so I tried 2 grafts at once.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Hellmanns

I ended up with around 250 successful grafts that are now growing beautifully in my high tunnel.

After my first round of grafting I saw that I needed a humidifier, so I ordered a small ultrasonic humidifier from eBay. Good move! My first round of grafting yielded about a 60% success rate. My second round with the humidifier 85% or better. I only lost plants because of rot at the graft union because they were kept in the humidity to long. My last few rounds were near 100% successful.

Here's what I've learned the first time grafting tomatoes.
1. The grafting clips must be snug to hold the union together. With later rounds of grafting, I even used a spring clip to hold the silicone clip snug.
2. The growing medium need be only slightly moist during the healing period.
3.Newly grafted plants need 90-95% humidity, and total darkness for 48 hours, then filtered light with high humidity for another 48 hours. After this period, humidity can gradually be reduced while light intensity is increased.

Ah Gasshopper has grasped the core of grafting tomatoes.

Bill

[Hellmanns]

Originally Posted by b54red

Ah Gasshopper has grasped the core of grafting tomatoes.

Bill

Thanks, Bill!
Though I don't do it like you, your posts, and experience were instrumental in helping me get it all put together.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Hellmanns

Thanks, Bill!
Though I don't do it like you, your posts, and experience were instrumental in helping me get it all put together.

What I do is from necessity. It would be a lot easier for me to use potting soil and never take the plants out of their cups while grafting and it would shorten the process greatly. I had a few batches that turned out doing the grafting the more traditional way but the over abundance of damping off disease here caused such high loses and such inconsistent success that I just kept trying to figure out a way to increase my success rate. I don't imagine most would have to go to the extremes that I do to have good success because of a better environment for grafting. However I did want to let everyone know what I had found out so that others having similar difficulties would have a way of improving their grafting success rate. If I can get the success rate I am getting with this method then it should be a cinch to do it elsewhere. For the past two years the only batches of plants that have had less than a 90% success rate have been ones where I did something stupid or careless like forgetting to let in some fresh air after the first 48 hours or leaving the top off the humidity chamber on day three. I did exactly that on a recent batch and despite that still had a surprisingly high number of plants survive. I thought they would all wilt and die but some of them managed to hang on and thrive despite my best attempts to kill them.

Bill

[Hellmanns]

OK. What should I expect from the Maxifort rootstock grafted plants?

[Father'sDaughter]

My first few were done leaving the rootstock in their pots and I ended up with 100% loss. Following Bill's example for the key steps (low root, ultrasorb), I ended up with only one lost plant, so no reason for me to keep experimenting.

[bitterwort]

IME, Hellmanns, you can expect the Maxifort rootstock to pull water and nutrients out of hardened concrete. ;-) I've been using it for years in an outdoor garden situation and my plants generally get huge, often filling my 24" diameter cages up to the 5' top and back down almost to the ground. Oh, they're generally productive fruit-wise too. Don't accidentally let any of the Maxifort suckers grow, though--they'll shoot up a huge stalk in the blink of an eye.

[Hellmanns]

Originally Posted by bitterwort

IME, Hellmanns, you can expect the Maxifort rootstock to pull water and nutrients out of hardened concrete. ;-) I've been using it for years in an outdoor garden situation and my plants generally get huge, often filling my 24" diameter cages up to the 5' top and back down almost to the ground. Oh, they're generally productive fruit-wise too. Don't accidentally let any of the Maxifort suckers grow, though--they'll shoot up a huge stalk in the blink of an eye.

Thanks! I was hoping to hear they would be productive along with the vigor that I was expecting.

[b54red]

Maxifort is a very good root stock but is only resistant to two races of fusarium wilt so I didn't get to use it much. It is very vigorous and vegetative. This means that some varieties will grow larger and have much more foliage than you might expect. Be ready to do a bit of pruning or a lot. You will be surprised at the root system when you pull it up at the end of the season.

Bill

[Hellmanns]

Originally Posted by b54red

Maxifort is a very good root stock but is only resistant to two races of fusarium wilt so I didn't get to use it much. It is very vigorous and vegetative. This means that some varieties will grow larger and have much more foliage than you might expect. Be ready to do a bit of pruning or a lot. You will be surprised at the root system when you pull it up at the end of the season.

Bill

In the tunnel where they are planted, I will try to keep them pruned to 2 leaders.

[rick9748]

Planted 4 types of seeds; estamino, maxifort, cherokee purple & black krim.All planted on 6/10 @ 80 dg.Today maxifort pushing up some 1/4-1/2 in. .That is 4 days, ever experienced this rapid germination???
Group of 6 each to determine growth rate for grafting.
Was just amazed and wondered if you had experienced this rapid germination of maxifort??

[Hellmanns]

Originally Posted by rick9748

Planted 4 types of seeds; estamino, maxifort, cherokee purple & black krim.All planted on 6/10 @ 80 dg.Today maxifort pushing up some 1/4-1/2 in. .That is 4 days, ever experienced this rapid germination???
Group of 6 each to determine growth rate for grafting.
Was just amazed and wondered if you had experienced this rapid germination of maxifort??

Yes, the Maxifort I planted were up in 4 days. But, next year I will plant the rootstocks 1 week before the scion because the rootstock seedlings are tiny.

[Hellmanns]

Big Beef, and Old German are growing great on the Maxifort rootstock in my tunnel! I have about 20 nongrafted BB in a row as a control, they look good too, just not as robust as the grafted plants.

[Father'sDaughter]

My plants are still doing great. Because my graft point is so low, whenever I go through and pinch suckers and tie to stakes, I also check to make sure the scion isn't producing roots.

As I posted in the rootstock thread, I have three varieties grafted onto two different rootstock -- RST-104-106-T and DRO141TX. Last week they seemed to be neck and neck. Today the plants on DRO141TX are now about 6-8 inches taller and have twice as many flower trusses as those on RST-204-106-T.

My other plants are all on DRO141TX and all have many more flower trusses than I've ever seen. The seed stock description lists it as balanced between generative and vegetive and what I'm seeing so far seems to agree with that.

[Cole_Robbie]

I just made my first grafting attempts. We shall see how it goes.

I looked at humidifiers are Wal-Mart. They only had the "warm mist" kind. I was worried that would make things get too hot. I used wet perlite for my humidity. There's about a half-inch of water and a couple inches of perlite in the box. I covered the box with black plastic just now.

Root stocks are Estamino and RST-105. Top plants are Mat-Su Express, Sky Reacher, Polar Early, Agatha, and Jazz.

I held the double-sided razor blade in a pair of lineman's pliers and used it like a knife. My hands still stink of the smelly root stock plants. They smell like a weed. Maybe they have wild tomato varieties bred into them. The leaves look odd as well.