Have any of you grafted tomatoes? It's one of those things that I figured that I would do eventually, but haven't done yet. As usual, Rick Shory is leading the charge on his blog. He does a great job of explaining his process. Check it out:
https://rickshory.wordpress.co.....-tomatoes/
John S
PDX OR
A few years ago I was hearing about some special tomato roots that people were grafting tomato cultivars on. Watched, I think some YouTube examples using short lengths of paper drinking straws near diameter to support the join. Using a razor blade to cut near a 45 degree angle on both the root stem and the cultivar stem, placing the straw over the root portion and sliding the fruiting stem down inside to match. I only tried it one time to repair a young plant I had broken off due to rough handling. It took readily just like that. No additional binding - no muss no fuss. My sense is the cells graft themselves really easily in that rapidly growing material. Had also run across a novelty Hort business that was marketing their 6" potted mini grapes on mini trellis, I had been gifted. Seems their other item they were promoting was "catsup and fries", tomato grafted to potato. Apparently compatible nightshades.
I can see the advantage of having faster growing vines using rootstocks that are mentioned about halfway down his page. The advantage being that cats spray, which to me are a major deterrent of growing vegetables and other low hanging fruit. The disavantage of course is that, unlike trees, these are shorter lived annuals.
Chris M said basket random
I have read you can also graft tomatoes onto eggplant. Eggplant is supposed to be more disease resistant. I have seen tomatoes grafted on to eggplant in SOCAL, not here so far.
This is the first time I heard that it can be paired with eggplant. Are there any weather conditions worth paying attention to for plants to grow well?
Hi Folks,
In recent years I've seen a couple of advertisements in seed catalogs for special rootstocks onto which one can graft tomatoes for greater vigor, and presumably greater fruit production. I believe that these are a strain of seeds that are free of viruses and thus more vigorous and, therefore can make a more productive tomato that is grafted to it. I believe that the purpose is for a beeter crop of tomatoes during the season.
I think that it was in the 1970's that I saw advertisements in the backs of magazines about being able to purchase a plant that could provide both tomatoes on top, and potatoes below. It is certainly possible given that both are closely related. However, this also relates to my posting about a dwarfing interstem for apples on a seedling or "semi-standard" rootstock. There must be a balance between the root growth and the top growth. One or the other will have to "suffer" because they need to be in balance in terms of resources. You might get some tomatoes, and you might get some potatoes from the same plant, but you'd get a better crop if you grew both side-by-side. All of the resources on one plant will be used for producing great tomatoes; all of the resources of the other plant will go into producing a nice potato crop.
I suspect that grafting tomatoes to the special seedling tomatoes may have some merit for productivity, but some of these other cross-species grafts strike me as mere, interesting, "novelties". There's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy making experimental crosses and grafts when the mood strikes me, but in general they don't lead to any kind of increased productivity.
That being said, it is most certainly fun to experiment with such grafts.
Reinettes.
I have heard of grafting tomato onto eggplant so that the tomato produces more or grows faster however have not seen this because I never attend gardeners groups of that type. On the other hand I want to quote myself from an older post so as not to repeat the same thing twice;
Rooney said (me)
When I planned my landscape I wanted a chestnut tree but opted for a turkish tree hazel instead. The reason was because I found out there are delayed grafting compatibilities with chestnuts. To avoid the chances of grafts failing over time you need to select the offsprings from the mother cultivar. Turkish tree hazel also has been reported a similar problem when converting to hazelnuts. But Peter Svenith had hazelnuts that were grafted as such in tree hazels on Vashon Island that were still very good and producing well as of 25 years ago. So you probably can't believe everthing you read from books. And I opted to not graft hazels due to the amounts of tree rats (squirrels) around here.I hope somebody has an opinion to help you discover better chestnuts.
This Peter was an every day person with a regular job with a home passion to experiment.
There are only two examples that I have ever seen of Turkish tree hazel near PDX. One being my backyard, inspired by Arthur Jacobson pointing out the tree hazel in Lake Washington near UW Seattle. The other about 35 blocks east of me. I guess I should have grafted it and I would have nuts. I don't get any because they apparently don't out-cross to the other bush type hazelnuts. I do pride myself with the two year cycle of catkins. The picture is mostly male catkins. The accumulation is three paper shopping bags full that I'm going to freeze up in about half a dozen plastic bags to become future candidates for further study of endophytes for myself or researchers. I myself will delve more into extending the storage viability of some difficult crosses of North American wild cherry.
Chris M said
I have read you can also graft tomatoes onto eggplant. Eggplant is supposed to be more disease resistant. I have seen tomatoes grafted on to eggplant in SOCAL, not here so far.
For the first time I learned that tomatoes can be grafted onto eggplants. Will there be any complications?
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
1 Guest(s)