Post for Photos of Grafted Plants

[rnewste]

Yes Naysen - that is one butt-ugly tomato however, I am sure it beat any store bought one for flavor.

The corn is looking good. Hope the pests will look the other way!

Raybo

[z_willus_d]

Ray, what kind of pests usually afflict your corn crops? Last year, leaf-hoppers took up residence and were a problem, though I'm not sure if they inhibited pollination. They seem indestructible. I had some ears mutate and develop improperly, maybe due to pest damage. I'm just too new to this corn growing business to know what to look out for.

Thanks,
Naysen

[DavidP]

Hope no one minds but thought I'd post a few photos from a commercial tomato greenhouse in southern England that I visited about this time of year 5 years ago. This is what gave me the idea of grafting in the first place. All these plants are grown hydroponically in a softball sized piece of rockwool on grafted roots.


Each row had a couple of boxes of bumblebees for pollination, note the leaf miner, this was in the organically grown greenhouse where no chemicals were allowed, apparently there insect controls can take care of pretty much everything except leaf miner. They had an extensive display on predatory insects and used i think at least half a dozen.


Each plant was tied up on string and regularly brought down and trailed further along the row to allow for growth


Prunings went into a methane digester and composting facility that helped generate gas for the heating system


And finally best of all the tasting tent, this was in the cherry section, they trial lots of different varieties each year, 200 comes to mind but can't be sure this far from the original visit. They supply most of the major retailers in the UK and had I think about 25 acres under glass.

[aclum]

Hi Lyco,

Thanks for posting those enlarged photos from my link along with the commentary. Here are some photos of some of the plants in my garden taken with the intent of getting a better understanding of the vegetative vs. generative, identifying the tendencies of my typical rootstock, and trying to see how this might have transferred to the grafted plants.

I've got my photos more or less labeled and tried to take photos of those parts of the plants that are indicators of growth patten as was noted in the little table on the last page of the link I posted (and also discussed a bit in your post, Lyco).

Overall it's hard to figure out how other things compare as there is often quite an age difference between the plants.

The photos will be at the end of the post..... will post other varieties later. As I mentioned before Katana (vegetative?) and Grandeur (generative?) and Momotaro are my typical rootstocks (although I did use Prue and Ping Tung Eggplant on a few)...

Naysen,

Congrats on your first BLT (that is one ugly tomato LOL!). So far we've had a caprese salad with mozzarella, basil, Wes and Carbon; a bacon, avocado, basil, and Vorlon Sandwich; a Brandywine OTV, bacon, and avocado sandwich; and a sliced tri-tip, stilton, and KBX sandwich!! All yummy although the OTV could have used a few more days on the vine. Next up (in another day or two) will be gazpacho.

Neat to see your corn and zuke too! I've got corn going too and, looking under the leaves, I discovered two "colonies" of either asassin bugs or the bug that looks sort of like them (flat footed leafhopper????). Sprayed them with Neem and haven't seen any since. I wonder wehre they come from???

David,

Loved the greenhouse photos. I've been inspired by similar photos. Makes me feel less bad about severe pruning <g>!

Anne

[z_willus_d]

Hi Anne,

You have a really nice, orderly garden progressing along there. I'm curious, I see the aluminet lofting above in one of your photos. Today, I tried to put into action my plan to tie-up a 20'x20' square shade-cloth using 10' conduit pipes cemented into cinder blocks, having created "goal posts" out of them. It was a complete disaster. I'd get one series up, then start working on the opposite end and even the slightest breeze was enough to bowl over the array. There's just too much leverage at the top of the 10' conduit, despite their being held down by 75lb of cement and cinder. I'm curious how you tied the aluminet up in your garden. Actually, I'm open to any suggestions on how one might best suspend a shade cloth of roughly 20lb above a cement patio.

Thanks for posting the pics and commentary
-naysen

[aclum]

Hi Naysen,

Sorry to hear about your sunshade problem!! I'm enclosing some photos of my shades and how I fastened things. The aluminet is amazingly light so it's not too affected by strong winds but my heavier shade - which seems to be the same weight and material as the OSH coolaroo type shadecloth billows all over the place, really makes the trellis system shake, and you can see how the pressure of things puts a bend in its 10' support EMT (zip-tied to the 1/2" trellis "leg"). The lightweight black shadecloth I have over the last bed near the house is just a tad heavier than the aluminet, but much lighter than the coolaroo type stuff. The "legs" of my trellis, BTW, are 1/2" conduit slipped through 3/4" conduit that had been pounded into the ground so that it is very secure. Oh, one occasion when it was really windy, the material of the coolaroo came undone from the snap-on fastener at one cornerand I had the thing flapping around for a while before I got it fixed. But so far, in spite of some scares, it's held up remarkably well in the wind (knock on wood).

The string for the trellises and tying up the aluminet is 110# test DeWitt polytwine, and the heavier cord for the coolaroo (threaded though the eye-bolt at the top of the support) is just some clothes line I found lying around. And, as you can see, I use alot of zip-ties for things. The size and shape of the shades was determined by what I had on had and/or to re-purpose.

Hope this helps...... But off the top of my head it seems like you need to add more supports or cut down what you have into smaller pieces so there's not so much weight/surface area for the wind to grab.

Anyway, good luck!! Hope you can get something working for this coming weekend. Let's hope it doesn't get as hot as they're predicting!!

Anne

[z_willus_d]

Hi Anne, I appreciate your taking time to post pics and explain the elaborate shading system. I hadn't considered sinking conduit through the ground and then using it to hold a smaller diameter conduit. That's a good idea. In my situation, I have a cement patio that I would rather not mar (any further than I've already done) with my garden machinations. Where I have soil and grass, I find that I can only go down between 6-9" before hitting a bolder or river rock or what not. That's everywhere, no exceptions. So I'd have to dig a 1-2' diameter hole and excavate in order to sink anything through the ground at any substantial depth. I need to come up with some other solution. I was thinking of maybe tenting the shade cloth in the center with poles (water bottles on top) and then letting the cloth drape down on the sides held in place by the weight of the conduit poles. I have to think that one though a bit more to see if it will allow access to the plants beneath.

Thanks again for helping out.
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

I was out suffering (from the heat) in the garden earlier, and I thought I'd take a couple pics to show the difference in the current state of my non-grafted vs. grafted Green Zebra instances. Non-grafted in the first pic, nearly completed consumed by gray mold or some such. Grafted in the 2nd pic flourishing. I don't really have a good sample size in this one comparison, but it does make something of a case for grafting in the juxtaposition.

--naysen

[aclum]

Hi Again Naysen (I PROMISE I'm not stalking you - REALLY ),

I, was just rummaging around in the garage where all my hardware bits and pieces are in total disarray and I have to dig through all sorts of stuff to find what I'm looking for. Anyway, I was looking for something for the little greenhouse thing I'm building on the patio and ran across a few springs. The idea popped into my head that maybe you could put springs of whatever tension needed between your sun shades and your goal posts to take some pressure off the posts. So when you had a gust of wind hit the shade it would be like a tug that releases rather than a yank or jerk as you'd have with a solid connection between the emt and the fabric. The springs would take some of the force and shock of the wind on the poles and they might then stay upright. Just an idea that would be pretty inexpensive to try out.....

Impressive difference in your grafted and ungrafted plants BTW!

Anne

[z_willus_d]

Hi Anne, it's great to ping-pong ideas on the forum. I don't think two back-to-back volleys constitutes stocking.

At any rate, I got your post while lounging at the lake earlier. I was thinking about the idea of using springs, which makes me ask, btw, are you a mechanical engineer, and I came to the conclusion for my setup they wouldn't have resolved the problem. I was that far off the mark. The issue is with my pole-base. I have these 8" square cinder-blocks stacked on top of each other. They weigh a ton, but they're so easy to topple over. Now add a 10' lever, and a baby could do it.

I think in a better engineered system, the springs would make perfect sense. In my fumbling about, I actually managed to rip apart two right-angle conduit connectors from the forces I put on them. I'm sure those same forces would exist even if I had a well engineered base structure. The springs could help spread out the wind impulse/force over a greater period of time. I'll keep it in my back pocket, but for now I'm afraid I need to go back to the drawing board. My whole premise was faulty.

Thanks,
Naysen

[aclum]

Hi Naysen,

I see your problem..... The only thing I can think of off hand for now would be to connect the poles at the top to create some stable geometry or something like a pergola effect. At 10' tall - don't know if guy wires to your eaves and/or fences would work. Anyway, I'm sure you'll come up something workable!

Oh, I am not a real mechanical engineer, although I do watch NOVA whenever possible LOL! I should probably provide a caveat emptor with my posts saying follow my suggestions at your own risk ! FWIW, I was a pastry chef/baker (and other types of restaurant cooking) and, later in life, an architectural modelbuilder specializing in land use planning (models of golf coursess, resorts, developments, etc.). Basically, I just like to experiment and make things!

Have been busy taking pics of the garden and will post them to the "Anne's Garden" thread pretty soon.

Good luck with your various challenges!

Anne

[Delerium]

Alright don't laugh.. My really Ghetto shade cloth for the poor gardener.

[z_willus_d]

Perhaps more interesting to me than the shade-cloth is what you're doing with those large food-grade storage bins? Whatever the case, you've got some tasty looking tomatoes on those vines. Are they grafted?
-naysen

[Delerium]

Some are grafted some aren't. I bought these Macro bins at a Garage sale. They were using the bins as storage to sell their garage sale stuff. All i could picture in my head was - these containers would be great for raised beds so i asked them if they were willing to sell them. And they told me if I can haul them out - he would sell it to me for 5 bucks a piece. He had 4 i picked up all 4 lol. What i really liked about them is that i could use these to grow other veggies during the winter like a mini hoop house. When i did some research on these i realized they are not cheap & very durable.

[z_willus_d]

Yes, they use them to store harvested grapes at in the wine industry and no doubt for other ag uses. I'd say you made out like a bandit at $5 a piece.
-n