Best grafted tomato varieties?

[Mlm1]

That's great Naysen. You're going to have a really nice garden this year with the new bed and all of the grafts. We've sure had some beautiful weather this spring. It looks like next week is going to be warm so your plants should be happy. Looking forward to your pictures.
Marla

[z_willus_d]

Marla, you've got that right -- the weather has been excellent. If it weren't for the wild curve balls that nature throws, I wouldn't set the plants back with those wall of water contrivances. As she is, though, I think it best to play it safe. At my present count, I need another 20 successful grafts to reach my goal for the garden. That's going to be a hard goal to meet, but one worth striving to achieve. I'm cooking up some zesty pizza sauce right now using last season's sauce store. Fresh picked spinach, broccoli, and tomatoes from the winter garden will adorn it. Home made dough. If I had sheep/cows, I'd make the cheese. Speaking of cheese, I was so sad to hear they shut down Sally Jackson "cheese." I've never tasted anything like it, but then maybe there's a good reason for that. Anyway, side comment for those familiar with her products.

-naysen

[Stvrob]

Never heard of Sally Jackson cheese until just now when I googled it. Seems a pretty sad demise for a succesful enterprise.

[JamesL]

Originally Posted by newtraditionsfarm

My grafting adventures will soon begin:

I just sowed two 200 flats of maxifort, as well as around 2000 other tomato plants to potentially graft to.

Am I reading this right? You started 400 maxifort? Are you doing this solo or do you have a crew?
I started 20 maxifort seeds yesterday. And now I have feelings of inadequacy...

[bughunter99]

OK, you all have sucked me in! Where is the best place to order the Multifort root stock and the little clips from?

Thanks much

-Stacy

[Mlm1]

Originally Posted by bughunter99

OK, you all have sucked me in! Where is the best place to order the Multifort root stock and the little clips from?

Thanks much

-Stacy

I got my seed from paramount. Johnny's has the clips but other people have mentioned ways to get cheaper clips.
https://www.paramountseeds.com/seed-...ck-tomato.aspx

Marla

[newtraditionsfarm]

Originally Posted by JamesL

Am I reading this right? You started 400 maxifort? Are you doing this solo or do you have a crew?
I started 20 maxifort seeds yesterday. And now I have feelings of inadequacy...

Yes indeed, solo. I'm shooting for 100 grafted plants and am assuming at least a 75% failure rate :-)

[livinonfaith]

Okay, just checked the grafts. Out of ten, eight are still looking fairly perky. (although, on one, the remaining leaf has a curl to it that doesn't look quite right to me)

I had checked them yesterday morning and most of them were slumping a bit. The small amount of water in the bottom of the trays was pretty much gone. So I added some water to the bottom of the chamber. (but not into the trays, since you guys have told me not to water them for a few days)

Obviously, that extra humidity was what they needed because most of them look pretty good now. Since it is the third day, I just popped the seal on the chamber and have pulled the sheet back halfway so that they are getting a little air and light. The plan is to do that for a couple of hours today and then increase the time over the next three days. Then I'll evaluate which ones might be ready to come out.

I don't want to get my hopes up since there is still a long way to go, but so far, so good.

Reading about how difficult this has been for so many of you has lowered my expectations quite a bit so, hopefully, I won't be quite so devastated when I lose some.

The expectation has gone from having at least one grafted plant from most of my varieties (12 different grafted varieties) to having at least 5 or 6 total grafts to compare to the non grafted varieties. (I plan to have 17 tomato plants, of 14 varieties, with as many grafted as possible) I will also have ten of the dwarf project plants which won't be grafted.

I still have ten of the larger rootstock, but am getting the scions into the green house so that the stems will plump up a bit. They are just too small. Then I have 18 rootstock that are way too small for the scions. Maybe those will work later, matched with a sucker from one of the larger plants. Who know?

Anyway, at this point everything feels very much up in the air. I feel a little like I'm waiting for some kind of medical test result. How silly is that?

[livinonfaith]

I seriously don't know how some of you are doing this with 50 or more plants at a time! Just the thought makes me a little panicky!

[livinonfaith]

Okay, so after about three hours of indoor lighting (from the windows) and the chamber propped open, I had six plants that had not noticeably wilted at all and two that had wilted. (But even those two still look very much alive)

Not surprisingly, the two that were wilted before I even opened the chamber didn't improve. I'll keep them in until they are definitely dead, but am basically writing those off at this point.

So, I'm thinking eight out of ten still in the game, at least at this point. Crossing my fingers, here.

[Mlm1]

I would not write off the wilters yet. Put them back into high humidity. I don't plan on even trying to get mine out of the high humidity container for 3 days and sometimes it is 5 or 6 days before I can get them out.
Marla

[livinonfaith]

Ahhh, Thanks Marla! That sounds good to me!

So far, the atmosphere inside the chamber still seems really good. There are no musty smells, the water in the bottom is clear and the sides are clear, as well.

It just makes sense that, as long as it continues to be a "safe place" the extra time to heal would be a good thing.

I just need to develop a little patience.

[bitterwort]

I leave mine in the recovery chamber (just a flat with a tall clear-plastic dome on top) for 5 days and then I begin by opening the sliding top vent slightly to let the humidity equalize with the humidity in the room before taking off the cover. I keep the change gradual rather than making them go cold turkey. In a few cases with those that tended to wilt, I even put them under lights with the dome on. I've only done 45 or 50 in the last couple of years and had some failures on the second grafts (of double-grafted plants) the first year, but no complete failures (knock, knock). Think of them as babies in intensive care at first.

[aclum]

Hi Everyone,

I've really been enjoying reading about everyone's adventures in grafting and, esp. seeing all the photos!! I'll write more tomorrow with a progress report on my activities (hope to start planting out tomorrow), but for now, I'm just seeing if I can master the posting of photos.

I'll be trying to attach a photo of some of my grafts. I think it's from 3 different batches and, unfortunately, I don't recall exactly how old each batch is.

Seems to be working, at least in the preview, so off it goes!! I'll try for some more photos soon.

Anne

[Mlm1]

Photo looks good and so do the grafts. Should be a beautiful week to plant out. I will be starting my grafts next week and will try to get some photos.
Happy planting,
Marla