Quote:
Originally Posted by jtjmartin
Hey All - A grafting update from southeast Virginia
Bacterial Wilt:
All but one or two of my grafted plants thrived and survived - many producing vines well over 20 feet long use single stem lean and lower. The couple that I had to pull early had that same stunted curled leaf look of herbicide damage or one of the myriad of diseases.
I extended my garden into some virgin land and hoped non-grafted tomatoes would grow there for at least a year or so. That was a no-go. Bacterial wilt even took out the hybrids like Brandy Boy just as they were producing. The BW is very hit and miss - a few non-grafted plants had a fairly long, productive year.
Grafting onto re-rooted RST-04-106:
As Bill observed above (thank you Bill for all your help & guidance) I had a very low success rate and noticed the difference in how fibrous the re-rooted tops were. I won't try this again unless forced to by lack of RST seed.
Zendog:
Hope to get an update from you on how your grafting is going. I'm in Arlington every other month or so on business. Pretty area.
Father's Daughter:
Grafting is a game-changer like you said! I grew a couple varieties that others said had great taste but were too susceptible to disease. Grafting worked! - great taste/little disease.
For next year, I just finished another 60 feet of hugel beds to grow tomatoes on. I'm planning on buying some bigger healing boxes and grafting more tomatoes at the same time rather than trying smaller batches.
Jeff
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Great to hear Jeff. As I have said in another thread or two this has been my most successful year ever with tomatoes as well as some other crops like bell peppers, cucumbers and okra. Despite getting the edge of the eye wall from Michael many of my tomatoes though messed up from the winds are still producing. I am now removing most of my older vines even though they have tomatoes on them because I would like to get some beds ready for winter planting of things like lettuce and spinach. I am so far behind on cool weather crops due to the very late hot weather and the hurricane that most of what I plant til spring will be over wintering crops and their success will depend on just how cold it gets this year.
Last time I looked the RST-04-106-T was still unavailable. I hope they will be available again next year because the success rate I have had with them is better than any other root stock I have used. I also worry that grafting will be even more of a problem this year as my arthritis in my hands has gotten far worse and it really affects my ability to do any delicate work like that.
My plan is to plant even fewer plants than last year since just the wife and I can't use the huge amounts of tomatoes that we made this past year. Of course those plans are subject to change.
Bill