WHY are you grafting? Expectations? Results tracking?

[mensplace]

Just curious and very interested in your findings!
From my studies of fruit tree grafting since a teen I have learned that there are far more impacts upon the fruit and trees produced than one might expect. Yes, with tomatoes one might be trying to obtain more disease resistance, but there are many other side issues such as compatibility between the scion and stock that are only seen when the graft is rejected or the plants snaps at the graft when the winds come and you think the graft was successful. Too, what graft style seems to work best over the life of the plant? The selection of the stock also (in fruit) drives the size of the plant, when fruit production begins and ends, and many variables in the fruit itself from size and productivity to some of the fruit characteristics. Where you may have found incompatibility, has anyone tried to use inter-stems between the scion and stock? Lastly, as I am sure you are already aware, if you plant too deeply so that the scion touches the soil, you may well develop scion roots which would negate any benefits from the graft. I do hope that folks are trying side by side grow outs so that they can truly compare the differences realized between the scion's performance by itself versus the grafted variety with the same scion...especially if experimenting with multiple varieties of stock. With fruit grafting there has been such experimentation and record keeping so that now stock selection can be made based upon a wide variety so soils, weather, water in the soil, and the many size and compatibility issues. Your experiments now, especially with U.S. conditions and desired results, could prove very valuable for future generations in view of the preservation of old varieties, climatological changes, or even productivity as available space for growing declines.

[Delerium]

I graft mainly to grow more varieties with less space. I still don't believe (in graft incompatibility) only because i have tried so many combinations with pretty much most of them taking. Here in California where we live our seasons are short especially once the heat hits production pretty much stops (so i don't find it all that useful to graft for disease) and its better to start a new batch of plants than to watch unproductive plants just dropping blossoms from the heat. Can you give me an example of a graft that's incompatible so i can try it out to see if that's to be true. I am willing to try a graft that's incompatible because I am just not sold on that concept.

[feldon30]

Fantastic thread. If I graft, it will be to overcome Fusarium which is a known problem in the piedmont area of South Carolina but currently unknown in my garden.

I will be looking for a rootstock which is compatible with indeterminate heirloom tomato varieties. I hadn't even thought of the possibility that a rootstock would impose a determinate habit on an indeterminate scion, or that fruit size would be affected. I've never done a graft but I have pretty steady hands and good success with potting up of seedlings so hopefully that translates to grafting.

There seem to be a number of rootstocks, each more expensive than the other. Will be looking forward to recommendations and experiences of others.

[mensplace]

Nobody was trying to "SELL" anybody! However, I have simply never seen any scientifically addressed and replicateable findings that addresses all of the many, many factors that should be considered, observed and measured when combining stocks and scions, much less interstems....and the variables from soil, drainage, compatibility, climate and impact upon the resulting fruit such as size, taste, color, and production should all be noted. That said, other than a few stocks that have originated largely in greenhouses, I see no reason that one would not want to try other stocks with equal or greater disease and/or heat resistance.

[Delerium]

Understood and no need to type in caps. What i am trying to convey here is that I don't quite believe in the incompatibility if the rootstock that's chosen is has Healthier looking / productive and has uniform shaped fruit compared to the scion variety. I have tried over 150 combinations of edible varieties (once that we all love growing). Not the spitters that are usually used for rootstocks. So what i am saying is you graft 2 usable/edible varieties i highly doubt there is going to be incompatibilities. Some combinations will work better than others (production wise) that i understand. But the actually grafting process where 2 varieties won't take due to incompatibility, that i don't believe that's to be true.

[b54red]

I will have to disagree with you on that one Delerium. Since almost all of my grafts are using rootstocks which are determinate hybrids with indeterminate heirlooms as scions I have seen some incompatibility problems with a few combinations. I can't be sure if it will always be true on every one but the difference in the scion from one rootstock to the other can be significant. I am in the early stage of testing a good many combinations and will give my findings which will necessarily be just observations of a non scientist. I don't know if there are compatibility issues so great as to stop a grafted plant from growing at all but if the plant is stunted and weird looking compared to the same scions with other rootstock you have to think something is going on.

I have noticed startling differences with some scions on different rootstock. I have also noticed early on that one rootstock that seems to have only a slight positive impact on the scion and no negative impacts is Tasti-Lee. To me a rootstock is incompatible with a scion if the resulting graft does not thrive like the other grafts. For me it is compatible if the good influences of the rootstock outweigh any negatives while incompatible would be just the reverse.

When I started experimenting with grafting last year I was using heirloom rootstock and never saw a single one with issues of compatibility so maybe it is the determinate hybrids as rootstock that cause the problems. Since I need the highly fusarium resistance of those hybrids I am using them exclusively now since the heirloom rootstock do not give me much. Why go to the bother of grafting just to watch the plant die of fusarium the same as an ungrafted plant.

Bill

[Delerium]

Yes Bill that could be very well be possible. Most of the rootstocks I have been using are Indeterminate rootstock varieties with the idea of growing all season long (though our growing season window is pretty short). I don't like the idea of using determinate varieties which have a predefined growing period and its done. Also the rootstock variety that i choose always is a healthier plant (known to be productive) than the scion variety. And so far every variety combo variation i have grown are producing tomatoes with pretty good yield while allowing the rootstock to produce as tomatoes as well. I don't see any real performance issues as far as production. I am pretty happy with how things turned out this year and will be getting ready for another round of test combinations for our fall crop. The only determinate rootstock i have been interested in using is Rutgers since Bobby (mhpgardener) has fabulous production which has tempted me to give Rutgers a try. Disease problems is something your going to get regardless of the rootstock which is why i don't graft for disease. I'd rather pick a variety than can tolerate the disease and still keep producing.

[ChrisK]

I graft for soil-borne diseases which are quite bad here. For me, it wouldn't be worth the time if I didn't have that problem.

[mensplace]

Originally Posted by b54red

When I started experimenting with grafting last year I was using heirloom rootstock and never saw a single one with issues of compatibility so maybe it is the determinate hybrids as rootstock that cause the problems. Since I need the highly fusarium resistance of those hybrids I am using them exclusively now since the heirloom rootstock do not give me much. Why go to the bother of grafting just to watch the plant die of fusarium the same as an ungrafted plant.

Bill

similar to grafting fruit trees. The rootstock grown from seedling rootstock is one of those most assured of growing, but gives few additional benefits. Exactly why some use the seedling for roots, an interstem for dwarfing and fast production and then the scion for the other desired features.

[b54red]

Oh sorry I forgot to mention that I am doing the grafting strictly for fusarium resistance. I have never in hundreds of varieties found an open pollinated variety that can withstand the fusarium in my garden as well as some of the more resistant hybrid varieties. I have found a few that are generally better than most of the others but still far too susceptible.

Delerium, I did find a fluke tomato that came from Indian Stripe that worked better than Big Beef and some other tomatoes that were resistant to R1 and R2. If you would like to try it I think I still have a good quantity of the seed and could send you some. The only affect it had on the scions was better fusarium resistance and earlier and more fruit set and it took grafts like a dream. It is the only rootstock where the grafts seemed to take much better than all the others every time I used it. It also showed good RKN resistance.

As my age goes up and my health goes down it was just becoming more work than I could manage to replace so many plants week after week hoping to get one to live long enough to have ripe fruit. I did it for years and that is how I learned how to grow tomatoes during the hottest months of the year when everyone said it couldn't be done. I just kept replacing plants and in my efforts to get them to survive the plant outs during the months of May, June, July and August I came up with some techniques that also helped them set fruit in those blazing months. Almost always less and smaller fruit but still who was I to say no to fresh tomatoes here in August and September when everyone else was getting awful store bought ones. I am hopeful that these little tricks will help me keep my grafts producing during the mid and late summer.

Bill

[DavidP]

I guess I'm playing around with grafting to help with disease resistance, mainly to root knot nematodes and also to get maximum productivity out of a given space. I have plenty of space but water is limited and expensive so I'd rather grow a few plants that are very productive than loads of plants that are marginally productive. I was mainly inspired by visiting a commercial greenhouse in southern england a few years ago which has about 25 acres under glass and all grafted plants and seeing how productive they can be. Plus its fun to mess around.

This is my results table from matched pairs of plants last year.



Unpruned caged Red Brandywine

--------------No of Fruit-------Av size (gms)---- Av Diam (cms)------Total wt (gms)

Grafted---------73---------------119------------------6.1-----------------8704

Ungrafted-------17---------------368------------------9.2-------------------6263


Pruned single stem

Grafted
Cherokee Purple--17-------------159------------------6.7-------------------2712

Ungrafted
Cherokee Purple---9-------------138-----------------6.67-----------------1247



Grafted
Red Brandywine---15-----------158-----------------6.8------------------2376

Ungrafted
Red Brandywine----11-----------163----------------7---------------------1793


More info and photos in the thread from last year
http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....7&postcount=86

[b54red]

David what rootstock were you using?

Bill

[DavidP]

Originally Posted by b54red

David what rootstock were you using?

Bill

They were all Maxifort. This year I have Maxifort and Estamino so we'll see if there's anything between them. I see commercially they seem to be using estamino at least Johnnies is and maybe thats as they say more productive less generative (leaf producing). I have found in the past that they did produce a lot of foliage but maybe thats good in the heat we get thru summer.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by b54red

I have noticed startling differences with some scions on different rootstock. I have also noticed early on that one rootstock that seems to have only a slight positive impact on the scion and no negative impacts is Tasti-Lee.

I just placed an order for King Arthur and Socrates X3R from TGS. After reading your post, I e-mailed them back asking if they can add a packet of Tasti-Lee. If it pushes back on all 3 races of Fusarium and has minimal impact on the scion, it's certainly worth a try. So far so good this year as so far all my plants look good. Of course that's usually when the wheels come off, right? Crossing my fingers it's not just beginner's luck in this new soil.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by feldon30

I just placed an order for King Arthur and Socrates X3R from TGS. After reading your post, I e-mailed them back asking if they can add a packet of Tasti-Lee. If it pushes back on all 3 races of Fusarium and has minimal impact on the scion, it's certainly worth a try. So far so good this year as so far all my plants look good. Of course that's usually when the wheels come off, right? Crossing my fingers it's not just beginner's luck in this new soil.

Couldn't agree more about the wheels coming off when things look great. Last week my plants were generally booming and then we started getting rain and drizzle ever day with humidity near 100%. I am now seeing leaf deterioration from being constantly wet and I know speck diseases, spot diseases and gray mold will be popping up almost daily now. I cut off 3 five gallon buckets of sick leaves in two days and that was packing the buckets. I think I will try a copper spray today and see if I can ward off the diseases a bit. I have always heard it sticks better than most fungicides in damp weather.

Despite daily rain my soil is way too dry and I'm starting to see significant bloom drop so the first thing I have got to do is water and fertilize the plants. This grafting experiment is turning out to be more work than I thought it would be and getting sick last week has only made things worse. I talked to a friend of mine yesterday and he said he has already had 5 of his large healthy plants die suddenly of bacterial wilt. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have a problem with that nasty one.

Good luck with the Socrates. I think you will find it rather amazing and King Arthur can be too.

Bill