Best grafted tomato varieties? - Page 10

Stvrob · February 18, 2013

On some of my older grafts I'm noticing that the scion is trying to send out roots just above the graft. These are plants that are potted up and spending most of the time in the sun. The ones that are doing it the most are those whose graft has healed a little less than perfect, and have a bit of scab showing at the graft union. They seem to be growing fine in other respects. Is this happening with your grafts? Is it something I should worry about? I sliced some off with a razor but then had second thoughts. In a few it looks like the root is following the rootstock down to the soil, but none have reached the soil yet.

b54red · February 19, 2013

Stvrob, that is kinda weird but not really so unexpected. When you cut off a piece of tomato stem it will usually root right near the cut especially if the cut is near a joint. I have had some plants look almost like cypress trees the way they will have roots coming from up to 4 or 5 inches above the soil and running down to it. I wanted to do most of my grafts higher up for this reason but matching the rootstock and scion has put some very near the soil and I fear I will have this problem. I think one reason we have that problem down here is the constant high humidity allowing the roots to survive in the air and keep growing.

Naysen, my final results from my second set of grafts with the really bad damping off problem were awful. Right now it looks like 4 of 27 are going to survive making that batch a real disaster. Most died from damping off. I removed the clips from most of the dying ones and the grafts had taken but it didn't matter since the plants just withered away with damping off. We are supposed to have a few rainy mild days coming up and I may try a whole batch without putting a lid on the chamber and see if they survive. The humidity should be high enough and I'll wrap the chamber with the towel and only allow very indirect light in from the top. I don't see how it can be any worse than the 2nd batch.
I don't think I'll have many survivors from the third batch but I think that is going to be from the cold nights not allowing the healing necessary for the graft to take place. We are going to have one more night down to freezing tonight and then some warmer temps coming up.

z_willus_d · February 19, 2013

B54, holding out hope for your next round. My 3rd batch (the half that might survive) are still in that liminal, might make-might evaporate to mush state of being. I've got a 4th batch of three that seem to be doing better (2 of them, at least), and I have lined up plans for another five tonight. So far, I may only have one successful graft. A very sad and spindly looking Wes that I've had out of the chamber and under lights for a couple days. I think it will survive in the end, which is great since I loved Wes last year.

Stvrob · February 19, 2013

Ive had very little problems with damping off, and Im not sure why? I haven't done anything to control it other than rinse out my humidity bubbles in the sink now and then. I dont let any plants touch each other when they are in the humidity bubble. And Ive been pulling them out of the humidity bubble frequently, whether they are wilting or not. getting them into some sunshine and fresh air. Ive hardly used the lights, January and February have been mostly mild weather.
One thing I have been doing is trimming the scion foliage quite heavily. One other person above suggested trimming 24 hours before hand, I didnt do that, but that seems like a very good idea.
Mostly I'm just winging it. I've never done this before. My only other grafting experience is bud grafting satsumas
I'm wishing you much more success for your next round.

b54red · February 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stvrob

Ive had very little problems with damping off, and Im not sure why? I haven't done anything to control it other than rinse out my humidity bubbles in the sink now and then. I dont let any plants touch each other when they are in the humidity bubble. And Ive been pulling them out of the humidity bubble frequently, whether they are wilting or not. getting them into some sunshine and fresh air. Ive hardly used the lights, January and February have been mostly mild weather.
One thing I have been doing is trimming the scion foliage quite heavily. One other person above suggested trimming 24 hours before hand, I didnt do that, but that seems like a very good idea.
Mostly I'm just winging it. I've never done this before. My only other grafting experience is bud grafting satsumas
I'm wishing you much more success for your next round.

I'm thinking that pulling them out frequently and exposing them to fresh air may be a big factor. I know you have the same high humidity that we do and I think leaving them in the healing chambers too long was a big mistake on my part. Also not being able to provide them with adequate temperatures probably contributed greatly to their demise. I'm hoping the last of the cold is gone and milder temps will prevail. My first batch that was done during a mild spell did fairly good with about 70% success. I think it would have been higher if I hadn't grafted some of the really small plants which my 2-mm clips would barely hold the grafts together because they were so loose on the tiny stems.

Since the second batch has been sitting out on the table out of the healing chamber a couple more seem to be perking up so I may have a little better success rate than I thought. I've set the third batch out where they get a bit of sun and the top has been completely off now for nearly 24 hours but I don't know if anything will help them after 5 nights of cold. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

b54red · February 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

B54, holding out hope for your next round. My 3rd batch (the half that might survive) are still in that liminal, might make-might evaporate to mush state of being. I've got a 4th batch of three that seem to be doing better (2 of them, at least), and I have lined up plans for another five tonight. So far, I may only have one successful graft. A very sad and spindly looking Wes that I've had out of the chamber and under lights for a couple days. I think it will survive in the end, which is great since I loved Wes last year.

Naysen, why don't you try more grafts at once. I've been doing batches of around 2 dozen at a time. That way I will get at least a few each time. It won't be long til planting time down here and I'll need some to put in the ground before long. Last year I started planting out on March 7 and if the weather continues like it is now I may be able to start even sooner this year. We have had another very mild and wet winter so the fusarium will in all likelihood be even worse than last year so having some grafted plants with resistant rootstock could make or break my season this year. I will be unable to plant the numbers of plants I have used in past years because of health limitations so it is more important than ever that I get some plants that can survive longer. Good luck with your latest batch.

Bill

z_willus_d · February 19, 2013

Bill, I'm limited by (a) the cost of RS seeds and as result availability; (b) the low germination of said RS seeds; and (c) difficulties in trying to match RS and scion graft. I'm constantly evaluating my graft candidates for appropriate match, general health, and requisite stem diameter. When I find a good match in good heath at the right size, I schedule the pair for grafting. I take the pair out from under my grow lights and the water tray a day in advance.

If I was around at home during the day more often, I would probably have better results. I'd be able to pull the healing chamber lid more frequently and observe behavior inside. I find that when I try to do things like pull the lid or crack it during a work day, I'll come home to a disaster (large number of wilted over, soggy, dead scions).

Good luck with the warmer weather.
-naysen

aclum · February 19, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I have to chime in here and agree with Bill and Stvrob regarding the humidity issues. I'm finally having some fairly good success (after I don't know how many batches) by keeping the humidity lower.

I've ruined batches by

1. Generally keeping things too wet and too frequently misted
2. Impulsively watering (a bit) some grafts that HAD been looking good in the second chamber
3. Opening and closing the first chamber too often to see how things were progressing
4. Having the temperature too high (plus or minus 2 degrees of 83)
5. Watering the plants just before grafting
6. Keeping them in total darkness for too long
7. Lord know what else!

I've been having better luck by

1. Starting with plants that hadn't been watered for at least 24 hours
2. Putting a small dish of water in the chamber and just misting the inside of the chamber once just before putting the grafts in and no misting after that
3. Keeping the temp at around 77 degrees
4. Switching to partial shade after about 2 days

I currently have 12 totally healed grafts (5 out of 6 in my last batch) and I've got 6 more in the first healing chamber that I started yesterday. So far so good with them. (Hope I haven't jinked things now!!)

I'm really interested in hearing how your next batch without the humdity chamber does, Bill.

Naysen, perhaps you might try some with lower humidty and see what happens. BTW, Wes is one of my very favorite tomatoes too!! Hope it pulls through OK.

I've sort of gone crazy on the grafting I'm afraid. Everytime I've had a failure, I've ended up starting more seedlings!! I've got tomatoes in various stages of growth all over our family room at the moment. I'm finding grafting a really fun challenge. I'm going to be sort of sad when the "grafting season" is over, but it'll be fun to see how things fare in the garden in side by side tests. I've got controls for all of my varieties plus sometimes multiple grafts on an individual variety. I've got a control for Lucky Cross plus successful grafts on Grandeur and Katana, and grafts in progress on Momotaro and Ping Tung Eggplant!! There's alot of randomness going on as I've had so many failures and sort of a mixed bag of things a various stages to match up for grafting. I've got Indian Stripe successfully grafted on Momotaro and Prue (for no particular reason other than curiosity and availability - although there might be some interesting and surprising result). Anyway.....

Wish me luck on my current batch and good luck to everyone with their grafts.

Anne

efisakov · February 19, 2013

Hello, my friends,
advise from my grandma,
"If you want to have a green thumb, do NOT overwork your green thumb", the less you bother nature the faster will it recover by it self.
I know she was always successful with any thing she did: grafting, gardening, keeping bee beehives...
I follow her advise.

z_willus_d · February 19, 2013

Anne, thanks for the post. You've got a lot of really good tips both of the pro and anti sort. I can't fault any of it, and 5 out of 6 is a gosh darnoodley fine result.

Good going!
-naysen

jebradl · February 21, 2013

I've planned to play with grafting this year, as well, but I'm going to get my techniques down with some less expensive rootstock first. I've had a very prolific cherry tomato, both in foliage as well as fruit, that I'm going to use first, along with Big Beef.
I'm also going to try with cucumbers, as I've had some significant problems with them. The fig-leaf gourd seeds for cucurbit grafting were not as expensive as the F1 tomato hybrids.

Stvrob · February 21, 2013

jebradl, that's what I have been doing, using relatively cheap hybrid seed for rootstock. BetterBoy, celebrity, and supersweet100, since they seem to do OK in my garden.

b54red · February 22, 2013

I have been using cheap seed from the beginning while doing my first few grafting attempts. Today I plan on grafting a large number of plants with the cheap seed and it will be my final attempt with them. It is raining now and will be for the next day or two so I will also attempt some without the healing chamber and see what happens to them. I will be attempting over 50 grafts today so maybe I can get my technique down better. I hope I remember to label them all. I missed labeling some in my last two attempts and all 4 of the unlabeled ones succeeded. Not a single one of the unlabeled ones failed. What are the chances?

I will be starting my Amelia seed and some Multifort seed today. I started the scion seed yesterday. The grafts that result from these will be going into the garden just as the fusarium is getting really bad so I'll find out if the really resistant seed make a big difference.

Stvrob · February 22, 2013

Is multifort really more disease resistant than a hybrid like celebrity? Or just more vigorous?

Mlm1 · February 22, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stvrob

Is multifort really more disease resistant than a hybrid like celebrity? Or just more vigorous?

At a glance I can see that Celebrity has resistance to fusarium strains 1 and 2 while Multifort has resistance to all 3. There are probably other differences but this chart is hard to read on my I pad. Also I wonder if they are equally resistant to strains 1 and 2.

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...matoTable.html

It would be interesting to see how the higher priced rootstock seed compares to seed like Celebrity in both disease resistance and productivity.

Marla

February 18, 2013	#136
Stvrob Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,413	Scions trying to root above the graft On some of my older grafts I'm noticing that the scion is trying to send out roots just above the graft. These are plants that are potted up and spending most of the time in the sun. The ones that are doing it the most are those whose graft has healed a little less than perfect, and have a bit of scab showing at the graft union. They seem to be growing fine in other respects. Is this happening with your grafts? Is it something I should worry about? I sliced some off with a razor but then had second thoughts. In a few it looks like the root is following the rootstock down to the soil, but none have reached the soil yet.

February 19, 2013	#144
efisakov Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: NJ, zone 7 Posts: 3,162	Hello, my friends, advise from my grandma, "If you want to have a green thumb, do NOT overwork your green thumb", the less you bother nature the faster will it recover by it self. I know she was always successful with any thing she did: grafting, gardening, keeping bee beehives... I follow her advise. __________________ Ella God comes along and says, "I think I'm going to create THE tomato!”

February 19, 2013	#137
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	Stvrob, that is kinda weird but not really so unexpected. When you cut off a piece of tomato stem it will usually root right near the cut especially if the cut is near a joint. I have had some plants look almost like cypress trees the way they will have roots coming from up to 4 or 5 inches above the soil and running down to it. I wanted to do most of my grafts higher up for this reason but matching the rootstock and scion has put some very near the soil and I fear I will have this problem. I think one reason we have that problem down here is the constant high humidity allowing the roots to survive in the air and keep growing. Naysen, my final results from my second set of grafts with the really bad damping off problem were awful. Right now it looks like 4 of 27 are going to survive making that batch a real disaster. Most died from damping off. I removed the clips from most of the dying ones and the grafts had taken but it didn't matter since the plants just withered away with damping off. We are supposed to have a few rainy mild days coming up and I may try a whole batch without putting a lid on the chamber and see if they survive. The humidity should be high enough and I'll wrap the chamber with the towel and only allow very indirect light in from the top. I don't see how it can be any worse than the 2nd batch. I don't think I'll have many survivors from the third batch but I think that is going to be from the cold nights not allowing the healing necessary for the graft to take place. We are going to have one more night down to freezing tonight and then some warmer temps coming up.

February 19, 2013	#138
z_willus_d Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Eastern Suburb of Sacramento, CA Posts: 1,313	B54, holding out hope for your next round. My 3rd batch (the half that might survive) are still in that liminal, might make-might evaporate to mush state of being. I've got a 4th batch of three that seem to be doing better (2 of them, at least), and I have lined up plans for another five tonight. So far, I may only have one successful graft. A very sad and spindly looking Wes that I've had out of the chamber and under lights for a couple days. I think it will survive in the end, which is great since I loved Wes last year.

February 19, 2013	#139
Stvrob Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,413	Ive had very little problems with damping off, and Im not sure why? I haven't done anything to control it other than rinse out my humidity bubbles in the sink now and then. I dont let any plants touch each other when they are in the humidity bubble. And Ive been pulling them out of the humidity bubble frequently, whether they are wilting or not. getting them into some sunshine and fresh air. Ive hardly used the lights, January and February have been mostly mild weather. One thing I have been doing is trimming the scion foliage quite heavily. One other person above suggested trimming 24 hours before hand, I didnt do that, but that seems like a very good idea. Mostly I'm just winging it. I've never done this before. My only other grafting experience is bud grafting satsumas I'm wishing you much more success for your next round.

February 19, 2013	#142
z_willus_d Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Eastern Suburb of Sacramento, CA Posts: 1,313	Bill, I'm limited by (a) the cost of RS seeds and as result availability; (b) the low germination of said RS seeds; and (c) difficulties in trying to match RS and scion graft. I'm constantly evaluating my graft candidates for appropriate match, general health, and requisite stem diameter. When I find a good match in good heath at the right size, I schedule the pair for grafting. I take the pair out from under my grow lights and the water tray a day in advance. If I was around at home during the day more often, I would probably have better results. I'd be able to pull the healing chamber lid more frequently and observe behavior inside. I find that when I try to do things like pull the lid or crack it during a work day, I'll come home to a disaster (large number of wilted over, soggy, dead scions). Good luck with the warmer weather. -naysen

February 19, 2013	#143
aclum Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Merced, CA Posts: 832	Hi Everyone, I have to chime in here and agree with Bill and Stvrob regarding the humidity issues. I'm finally having some fairly good success (after I don't know how many batches) by keeping the humidity lower. I've ruined batches by 1. Generally keeping things too wet and too frequently misted 2. Impulsively watering (a bit) some grafts that HAD been looking good in the second chamber 3. Opening and closing the first chamber too often to see how things were progressing 4. Having the temperature too high (plus or minus 2 degrees of 83) 5. Watering the plants just before grafting 6. Keeping them in total darkness for too long 7. Lord know what else! I've been having better luck by 1. Starting with plants that hadn't been watered for at least 24 hours 2. Putting a small dish of water in the chamber and just misting the inside of the chamber once just before putting the grafts in and no misting after that 3. Keeping the temp at around 77 degrees 4. Switching to partial shade after about 2 days I currently have 12 totally healed grafts (5 out of 6 in my last batch) and I've got 6 more in the first healing chamber that I started yesterday. So far so good with them. (Hope I haven't jinked things now!!) I'm really interested in hearing how your next batch without the humdity chamber does, Bill. Naysen, perhaps you might try some with lower humidty and see what happens. BTW, Wes is one of my very favorite tomatoes too!! Hope it pulls through OK. I've sort of gone crazy on the grafting I'm afraid. Everytime I've had a failure, I've ended up starting more seedlings!! I've got tomatoes in various stages of growth all over our family room at the moment. I'm finding grafting a really fun challenge. I'm going to be sort of sad when the "grafting season" is over, but it'll be fun to see how things fare in the garden in side by side tests. I've got controls for all of my varieties plus sometimes multiple grafts on an individual variety. I've got a control for Lucky Cross plus successful grafts on Grandeur and Katana, and grafts in progress on Momotaro and Ping Tung Eggplant!! There's alot of randomness going on as I've had so many failures and sort of a mixed bag of things a various stages to match up for grafting. I've got Indian Stripe successfully grafted on Momotaro and Prue (for no particular reason other than curiosity and availability - although there might be some interesting and surprising result). Anyway..... Wish me luck on my current batch and good luck to everyone with their grafts. Anne

February 19, 2013	#145
z_willus_d Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Eastern Suburb of Sacramento, CA Posts: 1,313	Anne, thanks for the post. You've got a lot of really good tips both of the pro and anti sort. I can't fault any of it, and 5 out of 6 is a gosh darnoodley fine result. Good going! -naysen

February 21, 2013	#146
jebradl Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: SW Iowa Posts: 7	I've planned to play with grafting this year, as well, but I'm going to get my techniques down with some less expensive rootstock first. I've had a very prolific cherry tomato, both in foliage as well as fruit, that I'm going to use first, along with Big Beef. I'm also going to try with cucumbers, as I've had some significant problems with them. The fig-leaf gourd seeds for cucurbit grafting were not as expensive as the F1 tomato hybrids.

February 21, 2013	#147
Stvrob Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,413	jebradl, that's what I have been doing, using relatively cheap hybrid seed for rootstock. BetterBoy, celebrity, and supersweet100, since they seem to do OK in my garden.

February 22, 2013	#148
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	I have been using cheap seed from the beginning while doing my first few grafting attempts. Today I plan on grafting a large number of plants with the cheap seed and it will be my final attempt with them. It is raining now and will be for the next day or two so I will also attempt some without the healing chamber and see what happens to them. I will be attempting over 50 grafts today so maybe I can get my technique down better. I hope I remember to label them all. I missed labeling some in my last two attempts and all 4 of the unlabeled ones succeeded. Not a single one of the unlabeled ones failed. What are the chances? I will be starting my Amelia seed and some Multifort seed today. I started the scion seed yesterday. The grafts that result from these will be going into the garden just as the fusarium is getting really bad so I'll find out if the really resistant seed make a big difference.

February 22, 2013	#149
Stvrob Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,413	Is multifort really more disease resistant than a hybrid like celebrity? Or just more vigorous?