Grafting growout thread

[Delerium]

Virtex - I believe Rutgers is Mhpgardeners favorite. He sent me some seeds awhile back and will be trying some rutgers for rootstock.

By the way Bill, if you ever get dampening off or root rot (but the graft has healed) and you want to save the graft you could easily trim the roots off and re-root it. I've done it with ones that look like they won't make it and end up saving those.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Virtex - I believe Rutgers is Mhpgardeners favorite. He sent me some seeds awhile back and will be trying some rutgers for rootstock.

By the way Bill, if you ever get dampening off or root rot (but the graft has healed) and you want to save the graft you could easily trim the roots off and re-root it. I've done it with ones that look like they won't make it and end up saving those.

Frequently the rot takes place very near the graft or there is so little stem left that re-rooting isn't an option. I need a couple of inches above the soil ideally to prevent the scion from rooting and negating the whole purpose of the graft. In any case the rot hits so fast here that healed grafts are not usually even a factor.

I am going to try a little trick when my fall seedlings get large enough to graft and see if it will help. I'm going to go ahead and plant the graft in the moist larger DE as usual and then add at least a half inch of dry DE on top of it. That should at least help with soil line damping off but it won't do anything for the problems that occur higher up on the graft. I think this time of the year the plants already have the spores on them before they are grafted and giving them that nice moist environment just causes them to become a problem. Grafting was sure easier in the winter months.

Bill

[peekers]

I've had similar issues with damping off. I use regular potting soil for seedlings/grafting. I had very good luck with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Additionally, I used a 1:10 hydrogen peroxide solution for misting the chamber.

[charley]

Good idea peekers.hydrogen peroxide is just water and oxygen.and it kills mold and some people use it for foot fungus.maybe I will some a top dressing of De with diluted hp

[peekers]

Pertinent to the thread. I graft for bacterial wilt resistance, which is prevalent in my garden, and this part of NC. In 2012 I utilized DP Seeds RST-105, RST-106 and a OP determinate, Neptune, which is a tasteless variety but resistant to BW, as rootstock.

I lost about half the RST-105 plants to wilt, and about 20% with the Neptune. The plants with the Neptune rootstock were much less vigorous than the DP rootstock. All of the RST-106 survived and thrived.

In 2013 I utilized all RST-106, and ran an unpruned versus pruned test. This year all my plants (33) are with RST-106 rootstock and all are pruned to a single stem, and that is the plan for the foreseeable future.

This years plants are full of green tomatoes, some are pretty large. It's a good feeling to see a Pink Brandywine set 20 fruit after 60 days in the ground, though the Old Germans are very healthy they appear to be very stingy. My biggest issue is extending the EMT conduit supports as I have about another week before those will be eclipsed. Not looking forward to that task

[friedgreen51]

Peekers,
Looking forward to your results for 2014. I used the RST-105 from Harris seed. So far it has not done as well as the Maxifort as far as vigor. I have also had a real problem with bacterial wilt and fusarium wilt on my non grafted hybrids (Big Beef, and Park's Whoppers) after some drenching early May rains. I have had to pull 5 so far and they all had golf ball size tomatoes on them. I live just south of Raleigh, so I am sure I share a lot of the same problems that you have too.
Is the DP referring to the company that you bought the seed from? Would be interested in where you purchased the RST-106 seed.
Thanks,
Deborah

[peekers]

Hey friedgreen51,
I purchased the RST-106 at neseed.com and I haven't lost a single plant to bacterial wilt with this rootstock. It's crazy vigorous though and I really have to single stem all my tomatoes, cause otherwise it is outta control. At the end of the season the "tomato stump" is something to behold.

While it's disease resistance is incredible to me during the growing season it is highly subject to damping off. I'll have all heirloom scions doing just fine and the rootstock seedlings are keeling over with damping off. Cinnamon addition to the potting mix fixed my problem, and watering with with a 1:10 hydrogen peroxide mix I believe helped too.

Oh and a tip, if you have a gourmet chef in the house, in the interest of household harmony, use the cheap cinnamon and not the Ceylon. Cheap stuff works just as good.......ooops.

Oh and one more tip, commercial rootstock seeds are kinda pricey. I graft lots for neighbors/friends. When I top the rootsock i stick it in a cell with pre-moistened potting soil, treat it like a graft for a few days, and graft it again in about 3 weeks.

Good Luck!

[friedgreen51]

Hi Peekers,
One more question. What date did you start your scion seed and the RST-106 rootstock seed? Did one seem to grow more quickly than the other?
Thanks,
Deborah

[peekers]

hello friedgreen51.

I start the RST-106 a couple of days before the heirloom scions. They grow at pretty much the same rate.

First color on Thessalonoki today.

[peekers]

I have 33 plants growing, no more than 2 of each variety. What makes this topic so head scratching is that I have such disparate (early) results on the same scions grafted to the same rootstock. For example the Black Krim, I planted 2 on the RST-106 rootstock. Neither has ripened yet, but one is like the normal Black Krim I typically grow, maybe 6-8 oz fruit, no cracking, cause we've had no rain and I've been able to control the moisture. I should add it's been a very manageable plant to prune to a single stem.

Ok, and his brother, a wild one, at about 3.5ft tall the growing tip ended in super blossom and below forked into 4 separate and identical growing stems. I pruned it the best I could, looked at it many times to try and figure out what to do. So it now is a single stem (7Ft tall now), has huge fruits (for Black Krim, in my experience), 3 have to be a least one pound each, and green as they can be. So what to report? A Black Krim graft, I graft for BW resistance, that is producing normally, or his bigger brother? Same row, same seed packet, same conditions, different results.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by peekers

I have 33 plants growing, no more than 2 of each variety. What makes this topic so head scratching is that I have such disparate (early) results on the same scions grafted to the same rootstock. For example the Black Krim, I planted 2 on the RST-106 rootstock. Neither has ripened yet, but one is like the normal Black Krim I typically grow, maybe 6-8 oz fruit, no cracking, cause we've had no rain and I've been able to control the moisture. I should add it's been a very manageable plant to prune to a single stem.

Ok, and his brother, a wild one, at about 3.5ft tall the growing tip ended in super blossom and below forked into 4 separate and identical growing stems. I pruned it the best I could, looked at it many times to try and figure out what to do. So it now is a single stem (7Ft tall now), has huge fruits (for Black Krim, in my experience), 3 have to be a least one pound each, and green as they can be. So what to report? A Black Krim graft, I graft for BW resistance, that is producing normally, or his bigger brother? Same row, same seed packet, same conditions, different results.

I think you are just seeing the normal flukes that occur with many heirloom varieties. I have had that same super fork many times over the years and it is very confusing trying to decide which to keep. The worst one is when the stem goes flat like a ribbon. I have never had a good result after that happens on a plant but I've only seen it on a few plants.

I have 3 Neves Azorean Reds grafted onto Multifort rootstock growing side by side and they look like three different plants entirely. One looked so pitiful I just yanked it out this morning. One looks normal and the other is exploding upwards at an incredible rate. Don't really know what to make of it all.

Bill

[b54red]

Okay I have come to a couple of conclusions but like all of my conclusions they could be wrong but I now have the results of my fall tomatoes last year and my first bed planted this year to base these two conclusions on.

First, I am just about certain now that one drawback to the grafting is later ripening of fruit. Obviously the rootstock are affecting the speed with which the scion variety grows and ripens fruit. I thought last fall that some of my varieties were awfully late in starting to blush and this is being confirmed this year. With the high temps we are having now some of these varieties should have started to blush nearly two weeks ago. The earliest grafts were planted out 70 days ago and there are at least 10 varieties that always produce ripe fruit for me in less than that length of time. I have Fish Lake Oxheart on two different rootstock and it has always been the earliest ripening fruit since I first planted it a few years ago and yet neither plant is showing any signs of ripening a single fruit. Kosovo is another that has been one of the first to ripen for me for many years and yet no ripe fruit. Has anyone else experienced this late ripening?

I also think that some varieties are producing smaller fruit than would be normal in an un-grafted plant. At first I thought this might be due to the number of fruit but I am seeing this even on some with few fruits on the vine. I don't think this is true for all varieties because some appear to be totally normal in fruit growth and some may even be growing larger than normal. I will have a better picture of this phenomenon as the season progresses and I finally get some ripe fruit. I can certainly live with somewhat smaller fruit if the plants are healthy and the quality of the fruit is good but it may be that some are so negatively affected that there won't be any point in using that variety of heirloom as a graft or at least not with the particular rootstock that is causing the small fruit.

One example of drastically smaller fruit on the grafted plants is Akers West Virginia a very large fruited variety that usually pumps out a goodly number of very large tomatoes. I have two grafts with it as the scion and neither have heavy fruit set and with the vines about 8 ft long the fruits are really small. One has Crista as a rootstock and the other has Tasti-Lee as the rootstock. Another example is Fish Lake Oxheart which is usually my first open pollinated variety to ripen. The fruits after 70 days are about half normal size and none are even blushing. None of these plants has an over abundance of fruit and a couple have only a few tomatoes on them so my only conclusion is the rootstock is negatively affecting the size and ripening of the tomatoes. It may be that another variety of rootstock would not have this affect on them but I didn't have room to try all varieties on all of my different rootstock so it may take some years to get to the answers.

So far including last year I have tried Akers West Virginia on three different rootstock and all have produced fruit far far smaller than is normal for that variety. Maybe it just doesn't take to grafting that well. Although the plants have gotten tall they have not been as thick stemmed and vigorous as the un-grafted plants. I am also seeing similar problems with a couple of others. The grafted version of the plant just doesn't look as vigorous and healthy growing as the original heirloom. I am also seeing the total opposite with some varieties which seem to be far more vigorous and healthy when grafted.

I cannot believe the positive results that grafting has had on Lumpy Red. Both grafts with different rootstock are producing much larger plants with much heavier fruit set. Both Brandywine Cowlick's and Sudduth's are showing much better fruit set with all of the different rootstock even if some of the plants themselves are smaller than normal. I'm not sure what the final fruit size will be but with the far heavier fruit set I assume they will be somewhat smaller which is fine and probably could be corrected with heavier culling but with tomatoes that good I prefer to have more of them; besides they get too big for anything but bragging sometimes anyway. I am seeing the same thing with KBX which has always been a little on the stingy side for me; but this year the grafted plant is far outpacing any I have grown in the past.

One observation has already affected the timing of my grafting for fall. I started my seed for fall plants a full month earlier than I ever have before and from the slower ripening I think that was a very good decision. Now all I have to do is complete some grafts for fall which is a very iffy proposition this time of the year with the high humidity and diseases floating around in the air. Right now many of my observations are anecdotal but with time I'm sure a picture will emerge of both positives and negatives that can be used to guide me in future grafting.

Bill

[mensplace]

Bill, over here in GA my results thus far this year have been very similar to yours, but none of my plants are grafted. Just a couple actually picked and those were harvested just a few days after they began to look red. They have all been in the ground since March 27, but very, very slow to ripen. There was first fruiting down about a foot from the ground and then about a three foot space before the next ones began to set. Here, we have had plenty of rain, but nothing excessive. However, it has been in the 90's for several weeks, but with a humidity level such that it has frequently felt like 100. With many different varieties, it is not linked to a variable driven by varietal differences. Across the board, the fruit is just not ripening or even growing in sizes one might expect. All are in full sun all day and the foliage beautiful and lush, though I specifically did not add anything with a high nitrogen content. Maybe, they are too healthy so there is no need to reproduce, but I have to think this very early and extreme heat is a factor as well. Today, I have to once again reinforce the supports at the tops to reinforce them. All have fruit, but they have for weeks, just a VERY slow ripening and nothing anywhere near normal size.

[peekers]

One observation I have made is that prior to grafting I had many tomatoes that looked like they came from outer space. With the grafts that characteristic is much more rare.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by mensplace

Bill, over here in GA my results thus far this year have been very similar to yours, but none of my plants are grafted. Just a couple actually picked and those were harvested just a few days after they began to look red. They have all been in the ground since March 27, but very, very slow to ripen. There was first fruiting down about a foot from the ground and then about a three foot space before the next ones began to set. Here, we have had plenty of rain, but nothing excessive. However, it has been in the 90's for several weeks, but with a humidity level such that it has frequently felt like 100. With many different varieties, it is not linked to a variable driven by varietal differences. Across the board, the fruit is just not ripening or even growing in sizes one might expect. All are in full sun all day and the foliage beautiful and lush, though I specifically did not add anything with a high nitrogen content. Maybe, they are too healthy so there is no need to reproduce, but I have to think this very early and extreme heat is a factor as well. Today, I have to once again reinforce the supports at the tops to reinforce them. All have fruit, but they have for weeks, just a VERY slow ripening and nothing anywhere near normal size.

I agree that this year is not like most for the tomatoes down here. I talked to a commercial grower today and he said that no one is getting fruit up to standard this year. He was really disappointed in the size of fruit on his plants this year and said they were much slower to ripen. I figured with the plants going out so late that the fruit would be somewhat smaller and fewer since plants don't set as well in the heat but I also expected earlier than normal ripening due to the high heat.

Some of the smaller fruit is my fault because I allowed way too many fruit per cluster on some varieties. My JD's is absolutely loaded but the fruit is going to be smaller due to the high numbers. JD's in the past has been kinda stingy so I allowed far too many fruit thinking some would fall off but they didn't. Despite mistakes like that I do have some plants with light fruit set that are not making tomatoes nearly as big as they should though the plants are growing well and healthy. I have some others doing just the opposite. Oh well, I guess I'll have to withhold judgement for a while yet. I hope my order of TTF comes in soon because the plants loaded with fruit are already looking like they could use another pick me up.

Bill