2017 Grafting thread: Open to all

[txtstorm]

Hi, All. Just catching up on the thread. It's great to read about everyone's successes and...learning opportunities we'll call them.

@Fritz77, if you've got enough seedlings to work with, I recommend trying the side grafting. Initially, I was only going to do top grafts, but had enough plants to play around with. I had some success with side grafting using the tongue method (particularly when the plants were a little larger). It's not too tricky really. I pulled the grafting clip off of one of them after a week in the healing chamber and they were good and 'stuck' to one another. I have yet to clip the scions to see if the rootstock will support them. But the grafts seem to have taken.

All of my grafted plants have been repotted and moved into the greenhouse. I'm hoping they start growing soon.

Also, the peppers I wedge grafted to the Texas Wild tomato rootstocks have taken! They're in the healing chamber still and get wilty when I open it for too long. But they seem to have taken. Freaky!

To any grafting newbie reading this thread....I went from Round 1: 0% success to Round 2: 0% Success to Round 3: about 10% success to my last couple of rounds which were about 90% successful. So, don't be discouraged if this doesn't work for you the first time. Just grow out plenty of plants to screw up on and keep reading and trying new things. You'll get it.

I'd have to say that the 'game changer' was removing most of the roots before making the grafts. My problem with the first few rounds was that the graft joints kept separating. They held together far better once most of the roots were gone. Doing this also makes the plants easy to work with on the table and your cuts will be much more precise. I think Bill's (b54red) advice was the most helpful. Thank you again, Bill!

Now to keep these little guys alive and happy in the greenhouse until mid-March or so. Fingers crossed.

Cheers everyone and good luck! ~Adam

[BigVanVader]

Great to hear Adam, and to think I have been to half a dozen grafting workshops and none ever mentioned removing the roots. My success is entirely due to the knowledge shared on Tomatoville.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Thanks Bill, for everything. Sorry to hear about your new batch. Luckily you have plenty for yourself already. I have a bunch of Big Beef to graft this weeken while I wait for my next tray of RST to get ready.

I went out just a few hours ago and checked on them again and most of them have recovered but it looks like I will lose a few. I won't give up on a wilted plant til the top totally dies. I have seen them come back long after I gave up on them in the past so now I just don't give up on them until it is a sure thing. So far I am averaging far higher success rate than normal. Out of my first four batches of nearly 100 grafts I have only lost 4. Now that we are getting hotter, brighter and longer days keeping the temperature moderate in the greenhouse becomes much harder to do and I get a much higher failure rate.

I may graft another batch or partial batch in the next day or so even though my new seedlings are just tiny babies with almost no true leaves. I will use some of the tops from my first few batches of root stocks that I used in earlier grafts for the root stock. I still have plenty of scions from the first seeding. I always try to plant way more than I need of scions and maybe a dozen extra root stock seed because of the fact that I can use a few of the ones I root a couple of weeks after using them in the original grafting.

Bill

[jtjmartin]

OK, Virginia is catching up to the deep South! I've been lurking and itching to get my own seeds started. My first seedlings are up. I'm staggering the planting of RST and heirlooms so that I'll have some good matches.

This is the first time I've used DE to germinate seeds.

BVV, excellent idea about planting some Big Beef for grafting in between RST-available-times. Planting some now.

[jtjmartin]

txtstorm:

Thanks for sharing about the failures too. I'll definitely remove most of the roots.

I planned on doing some side grafting too - just order some clips that will work.

Jeff

[BigVanVader]

Yeah the side grafting is interesting, I may try some myself. Rekon you could take some pics txt? I watched a few vids to go off of but still.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by txtstorm

Hi, All. Just catching up on the thread. It's great to read about everyone's successes and...learning opportunities we'll call them.

@Fritz77, if you've got enough seedlings to work with, I recommend trying the side grafting. Initially, I was only going to do top grafts, but had enough plants to play around with. I had some success with side grafting using the tongue method (particularly when the plants were a little larger). It's not too tricky really. I pulled the grafting clip off of one of them after a week in the healing chamber and they were good and 'stuck' to one another. I have yet to clip the scions to see if the rootstock will support them. But the grafts seem to have taken.

All of my grafted plants have been repotted and moved into the greenhouse. I'm hoping they start growing soon.

Also, the peppers I wedge grafted to the Texas Wild tomato rootstocks have taken! They're in the healing chamber still and get wilty when I open it for too long. But they seem to have taken. Freaky!

To any grafting newbie reading this thread....I went from Round 1: 0% success to Round 2: 0% Success to Round 3: about 10% success to my last couple of rounds which were about 90% successful. So, don't be discouraged if this doesn't work for you the first time. Just grow out plenty of plants to screw up on and keep reading and trying new things. You'll get it.

I'd have to say that the 'game changer' was removing most of the roots before making the grafts. My problem with the first few rounds was that the graft joints kept separating. They held together far better once most of the roots were gone. Doing this also makes the plants easy to work with on the table and your cuts will be much more precise. I think Bill's (b54red) advice was the most helpful. Thank you again, Bill!

Now to keep these little guys alive and happy in the greenhouse until mid-March or so. Fingers crossed.

Cheers everyone and good luck! ~Adam

After I switched to DE it really reduced my damping off problems but I still had some problems with too many grafts separating so after reading Deleriums posts about no root grafting I just pulled most of the roots off and wow what a difference. This also reduced the damping off problems to almost nothing since I wasn't getting damping off at the juncture of the graft except rarely. I tried the no root method but it did not work well for me so ever since then I have been pulling off most of the roots. I do it haphazardly so some have a bit more and some a bit less but as the root stock seedlings get bigger I find that I have to remove a lot more roots before grafting.

Adam another thing I have found that seems to help is to remove most of the top leaves on the scion leaving usually no more than two or three at the top. It makes it easier to maintain a good vertical posture without too many leaves causing it to pull to one side especially when they wilt a bit. It will however take the plants longer to grow out if you do this because they have to regrow foliage. I found that I had a bit higher success rate and found I could easily wait a bit longer for plant out. This little trick is even more of a help when it gets hot as the wilting is usually less severe. It is purely anecdotal but for me it makes everything from making the cuts to potting them up easier when I have less of a top to deal with.

Bill

[Father'sDaughter]

All your successes and... learning opportunities have convinced me to stick with the original plan.

Seeds for scions were started today in egg cartons filled with Ultrasorb.

Next weekend I'll start rootstock seeds the same way.

And at grafting time, it'll be the "remove most of the roots" method.

[txtstorm]

Originally Posted by b54red

Adam another thing I have found that seems to help is to remove most of the top leaves on the scion leaving usually no more than two or three at the top. It makes it easier to maintain a good vertical posture without too many leaves causing it to pull to one side especially when they wilt a bit.

Bill

Yes! This was also a very helpful tip that I'm sure contributed to success. The heavy tops (especially when wet) tend to pull the graft apart as the plant leans to one side. I just trimmed the leaves to the point where the scion can stand upright. My grafted plants are definitely growing now. I was just out in the greenhouse and noticed the newer top growth.

They aren't too far behind the non-grafted plants really. And my plant date will be some time in mid-March. So, still got a few weeks or so.

Cheers,

~Adam

[txtstorm]

Here are some photos of the side grafted plants. I just had a few and one I chucked because I pulled it apart to see how well the graft had taken. So one of these is the 'whip and tongue' method and the other is..I think they call it a "side veneer graft". I just cut about half way into the stem of the scion and the rootstock, stuck them together and clipped them.

The first image has two grafts, one top graft and the side graft down below. The rootstock has a little black mark on it. It looks like the two plants aren't well joined together, but it's just how it looks in the photo. The last photo is the backside of the same plant with the clip taken off.

I think the sacrificial one that I destroyed was a better cut than this one. I think sharper angles make for a better graft with the whip and tongue method.

Again, I have yet to the cut away the scion for either sooo.....but the grafts are holding and the sacrificial one was well bonded to the other. Johnny's Seeds has a video for the whip and tongue method that can be used if you've got older plants that might be a little big for top grafting. I hope these photos upload ok. They'll probably be sideways. Not sure how to fix that yet.

Cheers

~Adam

[Gardeneer]

How about slit grafting ?

They cut the scion as "V" shape, Then slit open the root stock. Next press scion into the slit and clamp.
I think I have seen it somewhere in YouTube.

[BigVanVader]

Thanks Adam. I did 7 more grafts just now. 2 Wes on RST, and all these on Big Beef. 2 Lithium Sunset, 1 JD's Special C-tex, 2 Sweet Ozark Orange.

I'm loving the 1.5mm clips. They work really well for very small seedlings which I prefer to use. The other grafts are on day 4 in the chamber and after 4 hours with the lid open only 2 looked wilted. Going to give them all another day or 2.

I honestly am stunned by how successful this has been. If things go well I may be able to graft most of my heirloom tomato plants for growing. Sometime this week I am going to try a 3x graft. I have a Spudakee, a Wes and a Prudens Purple that are all around the same size and have nice thick stems. This is so awesome! I can only imagine the response if I can show up at market with triple variety tomato plants for sale.

[Jimbotomateo]

That would be awesome BVV.! What would you ask for em? They should sell like hot cakes! Lol. Jimbo

[BigVanVader]

I don't even know man. It depends on if customers are even able to wrap their heads around it. If so I figure I sell each for 3$ - 3 plants =9$ + time + wow factor = maybe 15 or 20$? I'm just going to try to do a few and see how it goes. I feel like if it was in a store it would be $20 or more but until the demand is there its hard to say. Also I will have to keep one for myself of course!

[txtstorm]

Update on those pepper/tomato rootstock grafts. They looked like they took, but they didn't. Well one might have....but the rest no. They would perk up when I raised the humidity, but droop when I'd open the chamber. I took a couple out and they just didn't mesh. Meh....it was worth a shot.

Oh! I wanted to mention that I was able to get a two-fer out of my Supernatural rootstocks. I took the tops and rooted them. They rooted quickly and have grown enough to graft them again. So, I've got more to play around with.

Even if the output of these plants isn't all that great, this sure is a lot of fun!