Mighty Matos

[velikipop]

I anyone familiar with these. Sounds interesting and I will be buying some today?

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/0...oes-this-year/

[Heritage]

velikipop,

My sister had great production with the grafts she grew out last season. This year she had about 90% success grafting onto Maxifort F1 and Beaufort F1. She sent me 20 grafted varieties so I'll be evaluating them to compare production with non-grafted plants of the same variety. Grafting is easy (according to my sister) but takes time, so, for us, the increased production will have to justify the time and labor expense.

Steve

[velikipop]

Steve,

That sounds really interesting. This is the first time I've heard of grafting tomatoes. Do you grow your own root stock or can they be purchased like the stock for fruit trees?

Anyway I went out and bought a Black Krim for $14.99...ouch!!!! It better live up to the expectations.

Alex

[Heritage]

Alex,

We get our grafting rootstock/clips from Johnny's:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6895-maxifort-f1.aspx

btw... when you plant the Black Krim make sure to keep the graft above ground so adventitious roots don't take hold and defeat the purpose of the graft.

Steve

[carolyn137]

Alex, Steve, I think it's good to remember that the disease tolerances, no such think as resistances, that the rootstock ones have are the soilborne ones such as Fusarium, Verticillium and friends.

While the most common tomato diseases are the foliage diseases.

I know there are some threads here somewheres having to do with the grafted tomatoes that Territorial Seeds starting offering a couple of years ago.

And I know I posted in at least one of those threads that Dr. David Francis of Ohio State found that using Celebrity as rootstock was just about as good as paying for seeds that were rootstock seeds.

Our friends in Australia laugh when we talk about grafting tomatoes, b'c almost all tomato plants sold there are grafted, and say that it's a good way to charge more and make more money.

A couple of years ago I was asked about the advantages and disadvantages of grafting tomatoes and I did a HUGE net search and still have many of those links in my faves.

[velikipop]

Steve and Carolyn,

Thanks for the info. I did do a bit of reasearch and there is very little to go by, except anecdotal evidence, as to whether these live up to the information given by growers. We shall see, as they say. I will plant the Black Krim without cover and without any special treatment in my yard.

Would seed saved from the grafted tomatoes exhibit any of the desirable characteristics of the grafted mother plant?

Wow, even the seeds for rootstock are expensive. Thanks for the info on Celebrity and on how to plant.

Alex

[Heritage]

Originally Posted by velikipop

Would seed saved from the grafted tomatoes exhibit any of the desirable characteristics of the grafted mother plant?
Alex

There is a thread here that discusses that to some extent and it was a big concern of mine because (as a commercial seed vendor) I didn't want to distribute seed that had developed 'new', no matter how desirable, characteristics.

My sister is the one that understands the genetics of tomatoes, so she contacted the department head of plant genetics from a major university (I didn't ask permission to use his name, so won't) and he said there wouldn't be any genetic exchange in the seed.

Steve

[Heritage]

There needs to be more research to see if the increased production, alone, justifies the extra cost in seed and labor. It does seem the extra few weeks of production that a fusarium resistant rootstock might provide could make enough difference to get a crop of heirlooms in fusarium infested soil - something that seems to be a problem, at least here in the south.

[Mlm1]

Hi to everyone. I am Steve's sister.
Steve, I just saw this. I will try to to find the information you refer to above and post it.

I think it is worth mentioning that I did give some grafted plants to a friend last year that was trying to grow heirlooms in soil with fusarium. He started with 6 grafted Plants(Maxifort rootstock and the heirloom scions included Mullen's mortgage Lifter, African Queen, Wes, and Black Krim) and about the same number of ungrafted. All but one of the ungrafted plants died early in the season from fusarium. The one surviving ungrafted was a McClintock's Big Pink . I think it had about 3 tomatoes on a small plant. One of the grafted plants did not survive but the other 5 were enormous and loaded with fruit. They survived the entire season. The Maxifort rootstock has tolerance to fusarium wilt (races 1 and 2) and in this case it made a dramatic difference. I think it would be worth trying in infected soil.

Marla

[velikipop]

Steve and Marla,

Very useful information. Thanks.

Alex

[harveyc]

Hi Marla, I'm down in the Delta and maybe Steve has said something (good?) about me to you.

I was just searching for updated discussions here on Maxifort as I think it's worth using as rootstock. Besides disease resistance, it just seems to be an extremely vigorous plant as well. I'm growing 30 varieties of tomatoes this year and 277 plants total (120 of the plants are SunGold). I don't have accurate records written down, but I believe I grafted something like 25 plants and 24 were successful. I grafted maybe 15 different varieties. What I need to do pretty soon is dig around under my plants to find my tags for each and every plant so I can make an accurate assessment of the effects of grafting. Still, I've seen what I believe to be some very good evidence that Maxifort rootstock does produce stronger plants and more fruit than ungrafted plants for at least some varieties. My observations for both Brandywine (Sudduth's strain) and Black Krim are very convincing (to me, at least). I have around six plants of each and it's easy for me to spot the grafted plant as I am going along in the daily harvest. My SunGold are vigorous plants and I figured it was probably not worth grafting these but the other day I noticed one of the first 12 of these plants I stuck in the ground on April 7th was about 20% taller than the others and just a more vigorous plant. I checked and, sure enough, it was one of my grafted plants. I planted an extra Maxifort seedling isolated from my other tomatoes and it's become a very vigorous and sprawling plant, presently about 10' in diameter and 4' tall. Here in my dry climate it is uncommon to grow tomatoes without irrigation but I have not watered this plant for about 4 weeks and it continues to grow vigorously and flower/fruit. I think it would be worthwhile to experiment and dry farm some grafted tomatoes next year.

What I really need to do at this point is identify each and every grafted plant so that I can determine which varieties benefited from the grafting. I don't have the plant numbers to have much statistical accuracy but I believe I still can get a pretty good handle on it. Also, I did graft a few plants onto Better Boy and I want to evaluate those as well. I haven't noticed any plants significantly different than an adjoining plant where I've looked and discovered it to be grafted onto Better Boy, but there just aren't that many of them to find.

Next year I will try Celebrity as a rootstock and try to do a slightly more formal comparison with larger numbers of plants to compare, though I seriously doubt I'll do anything such as weigh yields from plants separately. I believe my visual observations will give me a good enough handle on the benefits of grafting.

I believe I once saw a European source for Maxifort seeds that was more economical than Johnny's, albeit in larger volumes. I can't find that now and would like to know if anyone has found good alternative sources.

[harveyc]

Here's a photo take of the Maxifort F1 seedling plant (mentioned above) taken on July 11th:

[Mlm1]

Harvey, thanks for all the great information and picture. Steve has mentioned you in glowing terms and I may find my way to your fruit stand later this summer. I am currently swamped with fruit picking/processing but when the rush is over I will try to post more pictures of my grafts. I will also look into Celebrity for rootstock since I had not considered it. I have been very happy with Maxifort. I find that the difference in the grafted and ungrafted becomes more noticeable with the longer season. My grafted plants start out smaller due to the grafting and in the last few weeks have started to overtake the ungrafted. From now until the end of the season the difference will widen with the grafted being far larger and more productive by September. My family in Montana doesn't seem to have a long enough season to to see the difference although my Father is comparing a grafted Early Girl to an ungrafted Early Girl so that will be interesting to see if there is any difference. My own thinking is that the hybrids are so vigorous on their own root that the difference won't be dramatic but still fun to compare. That really is one huge plant you have and covered with blossoms .

Also I have trailed about 90 new varieties this year and there are a few I think would make great market tomatoes. Off hand the one I highly recommend if you haven't grown it already is Blush. Again, when I have more time I will try to post information on some of this years varieties.

Hope the rest of your season continues to go well.

Marla

[carolyn137]

Just a couple of points.

Harvey, when you graft plants and using the same rootstock, do you put out several of the same variety, half grafted and half not, in the same season so that you can make direct comparisons? I'm a BIG fan of controls.

Marla, I know there's another grafting thread or two around here and in one of them I mentioned Dr. David Francis of Ohio State who, after using several kinds of rootstocks, some he said were better for outside growing and some for inside growing, and presumably the latter as to prodution and the outside ones for disease tolerances.

But he highly suggested using Celebrity as root stock, and without doing some peeking around I would guess primarily for outside growing although honestly, I don't remember right now.

[harveyc]

Carolyn, I already wrote that I did not plant sufficient numbers to have statistically valid conclusions. That was primarily because I was trying so many varieties to begin with and just grafted one or two each of some varieties. Still, I believe differences are readily evident with the varieties I've described. Next year I plan to do much more grafting and will be able to do something more meaningful and I will try Celebrity as well.

I've looked for the thread you mentioned before but have not found it. If you could provide a link to it, it would be most appreciated.