Triple Variety Tomato Graft Experiment

[RootLoops]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Stanley2 - Thanks! I spotted your first tomato! Congrats. If you would like some tomato seeds to add more varieties to your garden just send me a PM.

Anne - Thanks! Now that tomato grafts are out of the way i can play around with grafting other veggies like cukes, watermelon and squash etc. We were trying to find a rabbit this weekend at a pet store but ended up with a cute puppy. Oysters are luckily for us easy to grow and very forgiving. I've been thinking about what you suggested and try some Morels & Straw mushrooms to cultivate. I read somewhere that you could take cuttings from morels to get mycelium started also. My wife loves to cook and we do make lots of spicy curries. I'll show you some mushroom curry we made with the recipe attached if you want to give it a try.

Recipe link - http://www.foodcnr.com/2013/10/sri-l...oom-curry.html

RootLoops - Thanks man! You need to show us your mushroom preps. I am going to try epsilons mushroom soup spawn method. I have some questions for the 2 of you to see if i am doing it right or not.

that method is new to me i'll be trying it out alongside of you, we have a big pile of hardwoods i want to soak with it, and a lot of leaves and debris where the chanterelles grow

[aclum]

Delerium,

A CUTE PUPPY???? Now you must post photos!

Cool about trying the morels (and others RootLoops is trying out).

Thanks for the recipe - I'll try it out if I can locate some of the harder to find ingredients. (I LOVE curries and spicy food).

Anne

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by aclum

Delerium,

A CUTE PUPPY???? Now you must post photos!

Anne

Our new family member . We adopted the little guy from the humane society. To bad we can't use puppy poo for the garden. But i am sure this little guy will help me keep my neighbors cats from leaving gifts in my raised beds lol.

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

What a cute little puppy! She (I think it's a she) looks really sweet and doing well with her new family. Nice size, too, so she can't do too much damage in the garden if she decides to walk in the beds (kidding). And great that you adopted her from the Humane Society!!

CONGRATS on the new addition! You're in for some fun !

Anne

[Delerium]

Aclum - Our puppy is a boy.

Anyways, just wanted to update on the Multiple Variety Vertical Grafting method I have been playing around with since last year.

It's been 3 days since i did the vertical grafts. Post here. I will continue to add more varieties to these plants as they start to recover.


http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....&postcount=195

I left the plants outside in a shaded spot. And as you can see the plants have no wilt or stress from the vertical grafts.

When i did this last year - you couldn't even tell that the plants were grafted - the vertical grafts all fused in to one large stem. Since all my tomato grafts are now in the ground I have time to kill and document my new vertical grafts for this year. This method is great for anyone who doesn't care for the disease tolerance part but wants to be able to enjoy growing multiple varieties without having to graft using Humidity domes and all the hassle that comes with regular grafting.

I plan to add as many varieties as i can in to one plant just for the fun of it .

[JamesL]

D,
Your post timing was perfect! I just started prepping the "lab" and am about to do some grafting this evening. This batch is all yours, "no roots" in DE. Was doing a final review of your methods when you posted this one.
I completely missed your last post on vertical grafting. Thanks for the pics! That is going to be next. I was thinking about trying to put two or more cherries together. Black Cherry, Sungella and Reisentraube.
Question for you - It looks like you cut wedges for lack of a better word and just matched up the cut areas. Is that accurate? And no foliage trim either?
Did you try mounting this on a rootstock later?

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by JamesL

D,

Did you try mounting this on a rootstock later?

Yes i did James. I grew out a Beaufort plant just to harvest suckers from it. When i had a vertical graft that was healed and ready to go. I just chopped the roots off the vertical graft and attach a Beaufort Sucker No Roots - RS . I mentioned this along time ago but i don't think anyone really picked up on the Vertical grafting till i decided to let the Cat out of the bag.. (wink). I was so sure that Anne probably picked up on the vertical grafting once i started posting pictures on using Eggplant suckers and combining it with Tomato suckers. That was the biggest clue i left around on a whole bunch of threads. I guess everyone assumed i was just top grafting them . I sure had fun just dropping clues hoping someone would figure it out. This little vertical grafting experiment is what lead me believe that grafting would have higher success rates if you hydrated your scions before grafting.. Walla!

[JamesL]

Sweet. Thanks for the info. I was planning on rooting all the Rootstock tops with that same thought in mind.
I officially named this for you. "Dr. Delerium's Triple Play" TM (patent pending)
I get royalties on name use when you sell the concept to Bonnie's and they start appearing at every Home Depot...

From a plant physiological perspective it really should not work. You have 3 plants with different cambium layers merged into one plant and then mounted on another. I guess it is a partial cambium match on all 3? I hope I get a few to take as I really want to to do a cross section at the end of the season right on the graft area and see what it looks like.
You will have the opportunity to do it first, so do it when the time comes and post some pictures.
You already proved the petiole graft works and that probably should not have either!
By the way, have you had any fruitset and or tomatoes off the P. grafts?

[Delerium]

Yes i have JamesL. As a matter of fact i have several variations of the petiole graft right on this thread with pictures that show tomato set.

This eg here is a Beaufort Graft with 2 petiole grafts.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....8&postcount=17

Look at the last picture - Same graft above done from start.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....91&postcount=6


Seems like there is so many things that shouldn't work by the book but seems to be working by.. Delerium standards lol.

[RootLoops]

i love this thread! i can't wait til i can start doing some of these things, won't be long i hope and i can add stuff too. plants are really good at doing what they aren't supposed to, they want to live by any means available, and sometimes they will just make a way out of nothing.

i want to graft a cherry, roma, and slicer on one this season, now i am gonna need way more seedlings!

[Delerium]

Rootloops I hope i did this right. I made the Mushroom blend (added some Molasses, coffee grounds and shredded cardboard). Cooked up some substrate and.. Layered the substrate with the mushroom blend. Will keep you posted on how this works out!

I couldn't find a cardboard box large enough so I improvised. I cut some slits in the black trash bag to allow some airflow in and put the whole thing inside one of my clear totes i use for grafting.

[Delerium]

James sorry missed your question.

Question for you - It looks like you cut wedges for lack of a better word and just matched up the cut areas. Is that accurate? And no foliage trim either?

Basically i take some thick suckers that i can work with. Take a blade and slice a good portion of the stem vertically (maybe 3/4 of a inch). On the middle graft i have to cut both sides vertically in order to get good surface area contact with the other 2 varieties. Then i use the Aquarium tubing to keep the 3 suckers in place and coil the wire around the graft. Plenty of air contact and the wire itself works perfectly to keep the grafts secure in place.

Not sure if you have seen this picture but I have done many grafts like this and the varieties i have tried so far have worked.

[JamesL]

Thanks D! I did see this picture when you put it up. I had misconstrued your vertical method when you posted it. Thought you were doing the cuts AND leaving some of each of the scions roots on until it healed then chopping the roots to put on another rootstock.

Made about a dozen attempts of single grafts last night. I intended to use glue but I was defeated in that regard after the first attempt and had to switch to clips.
The water pre-soak and the glue did not like each other.

[Delerium]

JamesL;402580]Thanks D! I did see this picture when you put it up. I had misconstrued your vertical method when you posted it. Thought you were doing the cuts AND leaving some of each of the scions roots on until it healed then chopping the roots to put on another rootstock.

No you got it right. I did some with rootstock swapped to Beaufort. But some i just left them as is and planted them right in to the ground without replacing the rootstock with Beaufort. Adding the Beaufort rootstock to the multi variety vertical graft was well.. More work that I was just to lazy to do.

Basically what happens with the vertical grafts as they heal the whole stem becomes one big stem that's hard to even tell that it was grafted. I wish i had a picture to show you but i can't seem to find the picture on my memory cards (might of accidentally formatted the card and lost the images that i intended to post here... Which kinda sucks as it was pretty cool to see the triple play merge Oh well, guess i will just show you what i will do with these new grafts.

[RootLoops]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Rootloops I hope i did this right. I made the Mushroom blend (added some Molasses, coffee grounds and shredded cardboard). Cooked up some substrate and.. Layered the substrate with the mushroom blend. Will keep you posted on how this works out!

I couldn't find a cardboard box large enough so I improvised. I cut some slits in the black trash bag to allow some airflow in and put the whole thing inside one of my clear totes i use for grafting.

looks great! those bins make the perfect oyster container, laundry baskets are good too. can't wait to see that grow!