Determinate rootstock/indeterminate scion?

[PaulTandberg]

Hello,

My test grafts are doing well, so now I am ready to do another batch. Soil disease isn't an issue for me (as of yet, anyway). I am experimenting with grafting in hopes of improving the production of tomato varieties whose fruit, in my garden, has been too late and too little. In hopes of killing those two birds with one rootstock, I will be grafting some Brandyboys and Cherokee Carbons to PolBig rootstock (PolBig is a 60-day determinate with good production and disease resistance).

I suppose I will find out for myself, if I stick with it long enough, but I am curious whether the use of an early-maturing determinate rootstock has helped anyone else get a late-season tomato to bear earlier and, if so, if the fruit quality held up. My web-searches in this regard turned up one hit, a 2013 post by b54red, which indicated that the resultant plants were not as tall as they typically would have been (which, by itself, seemed to hold some promise of offering "extra earliness").

Any experience here with using the rootstock of an early determinate to hasten the fruit development of a late-season indeterminate?

[jtjmartin]

Paul:

Great question so I'm giving you a bump! I've wondered what mixing dwarf, determinate, indeterminate rootstock/scions would do too.

Jeff

[PaulTandberg]

If I learn anything, I'll post. Yesterday, I grafted some Brandy Boy and Cherokee Carbon scions to Polbig rootstock. Next week or so, I will do some more.

[TexasTomat0]

I know with trees they graft the scions onto "dwarf" root stock to create the dwarf varieties of the trees that are much smaller than the original. It may be the same with toms

[MissS]

I'm going to follow this.

[Gardeneer]

To my understanding root stock affects plant size and vigur. That is why some gardeners use vigurous root stocks to improve plant size and thus production. So by choosing determinant as root stock one might expect the reverse.

[Harry Cabluck]

You may have seen this photo on another post. Shows two of Michael Lofthouse's "Ot' Jagodka." The one on the right is grafted to "Supernatural" rootstock. Regard how much the grafting sets the plant back. The Lofthouse root system seems as vigorous as the hardy rootstock. But we'll know more as we compare them in the garden later in the season.