Grafting thread 2021

[zipcode]

I see the yearly grafting threads seem to have stopped, so I made this one. I have not cultivated anything grafted yet, but will this year, and hopefully other beginners and veterans will also join.

My primary interest is grafting for vigor/longevity and not for disease. Growing in containers, soil disease is basically the only problem I don't have. Growing in containers comes with disadvantages like cramped roots, higher temperature swings from day to night, very hot medium in summer, higher salinity and pH (this is more due to my water).

I will start with eggplants and peppers, and if I manage to find some good rootstock for tomatoes, maybe I will also do a few of those.
For peppers I will be using Aji Amarillo as rootstock, which two years ago has been a monstrous plant grown in a small container, it had massive and efficient roots. I will probably only graft TAM Jalapeno as scion this year, which I've grown a lot, and know well what it can do, also I think pepper grafting might be a bit more tricky than others.

For eggplants, I have acquired solanum torvum seeds which are especially sold for grafting, because like with everything else, even weeds have varieties, and just any torvum collected from the side of the street will not yield optimal results.

So since the season is still quite a bit away, I only did a few things. For now, tested the germination of solanum torvum, since everyone says they don't germinate. I put them in a wet paper, and put them on the room heater and added 2 little beads of calcium nitrate (calcinit) as hopefully improve germination (pack says add gibberellin, but it's not like I have any). To my surprise, 29 out of 30 germinated in under 7 days, which is better than pretty much anything I grow except tomatoes. The plants are tiny, pack says seed 25 days before eggplant scion.

I also acquired some of those grafting clips, the big red ones for cleft grafting, and the smaller transparent ones for splice grafting, both from aliexpress, they seem quite ok.

Also at the end of 2020 I did a test, grafting some random eggplants on some random tomatoes and tomato on tomato. Only had 25% success for eggplant on tomato, and 100% for tomato on tomato (only did 2 tomatoes though). Not quite sure what the issue was, I think going too much towards the tip of the scion when cutting is not a good idea (to match stem diameters), as those all failed, also letting a bit more leaf surface seems to help, don't strip them too badly.

I will be using the cleft method (shoving the scion in split rootstock stem) for eggplant on torvum, which requires a bit bigger plants, as that seem to be the default method in japan and china. Not sure about the pepper, maybe the same.

[kurt]

Maybe some questions answered there.

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...light=Grafting

[zipcode]

Here are the torvum seedlings at about 11 days since sprouting out of the mix (I counted germination when just the root appeared).



Also, if anyone wants to see the cleft technique exactly, here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNlBkQKXpbo

As you can see, it's done on bigger plants than the splice method, but I have also seen that done on eggplants, not sure why this is the preferred method, since the splice usually has a cleaner healing interface. What is odd, is that diameters don't exactly seem to match for them, the scion seems thinner, or maybe it's just an impression.

[Greatgardens]

Has anyone here grafted tomato to eggplant root stock? Probably no disease resistance, but eggplants seem to have massive root systems compared to tomatoes.

[zipcode]

They sure have done that, actually mostly for some resistances or water logging, stuff like that. Certainly not for vigor, all papers I read on the subject (I have read many) show less production in good conditions. Even tomato grafted on torvum is a bit less productive.
So I think that means the tomato roots are bigger or faster growing, also more cold resistant. But who knows, in a hot climate, maybe eggplant roots could be an advantage.

[zipcode]

Now it's 30 days since sowing the torvum, and I have to say, I kinda think these will not be used as trial plants but as final grafting plants, they basically didn't grow at all. The newly emerged eggplant seeds for the trial grafting are already more thick than these now month old 'plants'. It's quite shocking really.

[zipcode]

About 6-7 weeks since sprouting, s. torvum is now kinda starting to look like it might actually grow. We also had some sun which helped.

The second batch of seeds (for the actual grafting, not for a trial) germinated significantly slower, at around 10 days for the first ones, and I'm not sure why, I did the same things, still a decent time at least.

In one week is the time to start the eggplant seeds as well, and the pepper seeds. As scion for peppers I will be using TAM Jalapeno and Aji Criollo. This last one is a fantastic pepper with very little heat and very very good flavor for making powder, but the plants are always suffering from something, yellowish, the plant grows very poorly the first months, it definitely needs something special about the soil, so I'm hoping I can remedy that with grafting.

[zipcode]

The first grafting trial has ended. I had to stagger them as well, since some grew slower than others.

Some observations, which maybe will help someone:

- don't take too much time from cutting the scion to the final graft, if it starts wilting it will take quite a long time in the healing chamber until it recovers. Even though the wilting itself is probably not a problem, the weight to one side might drag the plant out of position in the clip.
-for splice grafting, stem diameter for the clips you have, matching diameter between the plants, and cutting angle are all important and really takes tries to become better at guessing all of these. Cleft grafting circumvents all these problems, so it is imo much more suitable for the amateur gardener.
-the cutting angle matching perfectly is important for the stem to stand straight, which means the plant is more stable.
-for splice grafting, the clip should be attached in such a way that when you look through the empty slit, you can see the diagonal line of the graft union. This isn't mentioned anywhere, and maybe it's obvious, but it ensures equal pressure on both sides so again a more stable union, which is the biggest challenge of splice grafting.
-the first three days in the healing chamber are crucial, don't move them, don't even look at them.
-if after five days the plants wilt with lower humidity in the shade (like semiopen lid), then they probably won't make it.
-don't cut too many leaves, leaving just the tip. The healing chamber can support 2 more leaves besides the tip easily, you're just delaying the growth once the graft succeeds
-the clips are important, those from a more elastic material will be better, so they can apply pressure even if the stems don't quite match, also they should be long enough.

[biscuitridge]

I find that it's very important to lift the lid of the healing chamber at least once a day is vital, seems as though they need some fresh air. Last year I had 100% success, I did about 90 plants last season, I've never had that good of success before. I had so many plants that i had to put them out by the road for sale and ended up selling 400.00 dollars worth of plants that I would have normally just added to the compost pile.

[zipcode]

How about the watering of the rootstock? How wet do you keep it (during grafting)? I've seen posts that say you should keep it rather dry, but so far I'm leaning towards the opposite. 100% success is rather impressive, especially for a large number.

[biscuitridge]

Zipcode-
Watering of rootstock doesn't make any difference because I remove most all of the root from the rootstock, to much water will push apart the graft.

[biscuitridge]

I use the DE system of grafting, I even get 2 grafts from one rootstock plant by cutting the stem in 2 sections, you just have to keep track of what end of the stem is what,so you don't accidentally graft onto the wrong end and end up trying to push fluid the wrong direction in the stem. So one piece of rootstock stem will have the trimmed roots on it and the other piece of the rootstock stem won't have anything, just stick it in the moistened DE after you add the scion and then put it in the healing chamber . Monday I just grafted about 80 plants and it looks as though I may loose 1 possibly, it might still perk up,we'll see. I'll start opening the chamber tomorrow, I usually never have a problem after the first 3 days in the chamber, that is the most critical time for my system. I used to put them in complete darkness after grafting,but that seemed like the worst thing that I could do, I could never get them to acclimate back to light. Anyway I hope that this is helpful for someone.

[zipcode]

What was the delay in growth with this method? So how much earlier should one start the scion compared to a normal plant?

[biscuitridge]

I figure about 2 weeks.

[b54red]

I always allow at least three weeks more time from seed starting with grafting to plant out. It takes at least a week to get the graft to heal enough to take it out of the healing chamber then almost a week before it really starts to grow again. Then you need at least a week or preferably two with the grafted plants outside where the wind and weather can toughen them up enough to set them out. I got impatient too many times only to find my freshly planted grafted tomato plant separated at the graft juncture due to a storm or too much wind.

This has been the worst year yet for me in grafting success due to damping off in the healing chambers. No mater how sterile everything is they are damping off at a far higher rate than normal and I think it is due to the long wet period we had from January through most of March. I had a lot of seedlings damp off even planted in DE due to the dank conditions we have been experiencing until the last two weeks. My first two batches were a total loss and my third only about a third made it because I removed them from the healing chamber two days early and I'm glad I did. I have hopes for more success now that the clammy weather is almost over.

Bill