Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Cabluck
Estamino rootstock was a waste of time and money, sickly and diseased-looking plants this year and last. Having somewhat better luck with SuperNatural. Hope to go back to Maxifort in 2019.
|
I never had sickly or diseased plants with Estamino; in fact I found it superior to Maxifort and Multifort for most scions. The only weakness I saw with it was no protection from bacterial wilt but the others don't have that either. Maxifort doesn't work too well for me because I now have all three races of fusarium in my soil and it is only resistant to two of them and it has a tendency to be too vegetative. I found the same vegetative problem with Multifort. The plants were huge and healthy looking but I spent more time pruning than picking tomatoes. I think that Estamino is a little less vegetative than either Multifort or Maxifort so I liked it a lot other than the lack of bacterial wilt resistance.
I like the RST-04-106 the best because I found it affected the growth of the scion less than the other three root stocks. It seems less vegetative than all of them also and I like a slightly smaller plant that doesn't require quite as much upkeep. From what I can tell just anecdotally it does seem to have a slightly less vigorous root system and the fruit might average a bit smaller than with the other three. However with most scions I get far more fruit and slightly earlier fruit with the RST; but there are exceptions. There are some scions that do much better with one or all of the other three root stocks mentioned but overall with the varieties I grow I prefer the RST.
Bill