2023 Grafting Experience

[wxcrawler]

I also posted this on TomatoVille.....

I’ve noticed over the past 3-5 years that root knot nematodes seem to be getting worse in my raised beds. So I decided to try grafting this year, to see if I can still have some success with growing my favorite tomatoes in my beds. I experimented in the Fall of ’22 using Bill’s method (b54red on Tomatoville) gleaned from several of his posts on the subject since 2017. I had about a 50% success rate in those experiments, just trying to get the techniques down. For the actual grafting in early 2023, I decided to change that and use Zendog’s method found here….. and . I found this method to be easier and more successful, but your mileage may vary.

I’ll start out by saying my first grafting experience, as a whole, was not successful. But the grafting procedure was 100% successful. Because I didn’t really know how long the plants would take to recover, and because of our crazy cool/cold April, I didn’t get to plant the grafted tomato plants in the raised beds. I had to plant them in 15 gal. Smart Pots instead. So I was not able to test if grafting would help with my Root Knot Nematode problem. But I was able to gain quite a bit of information and experience to use next year.

I grafted 6 plants onto Estamino Rootstock….. 2 Break O’Day, 2 Captain Lucky, 1 KARMA Peach, and 1 Aunt Ginny’s Purple. I had a 100% success rate with the grafts using Zendog’s methods (I loosely used his methods for the recovery). I normally start my seeds around February 15 for an April 15 plant out date, and use a pop-up greenhouse and heater through March/early April. I started my seeds for the grafting part of my season on January 25-29. This was too early. By April 5, these plants were already too big for 1 gallon pots. They had to be planted into something, and the weather was way too cold to go into the beds. Because of the cold April, I didn’t get to plant out my other plants in the raised beds until May 2. It just wasn’t in the cards this year to plant the grafts in the beds.

Here are my experiences with the 4 varieties I used, grafted onto Estamino……
Break O’Day- In my experience, this variety doesn’t have much disease resistance. But we grow them because love the flavor. I grow this tomato every year in Smart Pots or in my beds. They usually pump out about 15-20 tomatoes before they succumb to disease (not from the soil). Both of the plants grafted onto Estamino have over-produced compared to a normal season. I’ve pulled 21/19 from my plants, and each still have more than 10 fruit on them. Vegetative growth seemed close to normal. The plants weren’t any bushier or taller than typical. The disease resistance was NOT increased with grafting these onto Estamino Rootstock. But that’s to be expected growing it in a Smart Pot.

KARMA Peach- I didn’t think this one was going to make it, because it was extremely droopy immediately after the graft. But it never died and perked right up when the others did after a few days. I don’t think Estamino helped KARMA Peach much with production, vegetative growth, or disease resistance (in the Smart Pot). All of these were fairly normal in the grafted plant. Two things were slightly different in the grafted plant, compared to a typical, non-grafted one. I got many more heart-shaped fruit than normal. In a typical year KARMA Peach will occasionally throw out a heart or two. On this grafted plant, I had about 40% of the fruit that were more heart-like. The flavor was the same, when I could time the ripening correctly. This leads to the other difference. The fruit went through the ripening stages much faster than usual. This is also occurring with the Aunt Ginny’s Purple and Captain Lucky grafts. But it’s most prevalent in the KARMA Peach. In a typical year, as the fruit ripens, it slowly goes from a yellow/orange color, to an orange, to an orange/pink, then to a pink as it gets over ripe. This process usually takes 5-7 days for me. With this grafted plant, that happens in 2 days. The expression of the pink color in ripening is much faster than normal. The taste is still the same through those stages as normal, non-grafted fruit. But they over-ripen very quickly compared to normal. Since the Aunt Ginny’s Purple and Captain Lucky (but not Break O’Day) are doing this, I think it has to be something with the Estamino Rootstock.

Captain Lucky- This one is always one of the best in my garden every year regarding disease resistance. My 2 grafted plants have had very little disease again this season. Captain Lucky is not very productive here, but the flavor is just so good. I typically get 8-10 fruit on a plant every year. I found Captain Lucky to be slightly MORE productive being grafted onto Estamino. My plants have produced 11/9 fruit, with several more on both plants. Vegetative growth is fairly normal for both and they did not lose any disease resistance. As with the KARMA Peach, the fruit seem to ripen to the overripe stage faster than non-grafted.

Aunt Ginny’s Purple- This is my all-time favorite tomato. I found grafting to the Estamino rootstock greatly enhanced the production, compared to my typical experience. I usually get about 15 fruit from AGP. So far this year, I’m at 26 fruit with a couple more on there. The taste has been fantastic. Vegetative growth was similar to my non-grafted AGPs. It seems to me to have slightly more disease resistance than I typically see with Aunt Ginny’s Purple. As with KARMA Peach and Captain Lucky, the fruit seem to ripen fast from the grafted plant. They can go from blush to too soft pretty quickly. I do not experience this with non-grafted versions of AGP. Because they ripen faster on the plant, they also cracked more than typical.

I will graft again next year, and will do a better job of timing (hopefully). I’ll probably try to get some different Rootstock, just to try something else.

Lee

[Frosti]

@wxcrawler thanks for this detailed description of your experience with grafting. Reading your text made me think of an idea that I'll try next season. I have no need for improved disease resistance because disease pressure seems to be low in my area and I grow most of my tomatoes in pots anyway. The increased production through a different rootstock sound interesting though. When I'm potting my dwarfs up, I always notice a significantly smaller root system compared to the non-dwarfs. I wonder if I could improve (the already good) production by using the root stock of a huge plant and grafting a dwarf onto it ...

[FatBeeFarm]

Thank you Lee, this is very helpful! I'm thinking about trying some grafting for 2024 and your insights will help me. Did you keep grafting in successive years? Did you find a rootstock that worked better for you than Estamino?

Patrick

[Moth1992]

@wxcrawler where did you get your stock seeds from? From what ive been seing the cost of rootstock seed looks ridiculous but im tempted to try.

I dont think i have soil issues but improving production would be great since my climate is pretty cool for tomatoes and many dont produce much.

[wxcrawler]

I ordered 20 Estamino seeds from Tomato Growers Supply. They were expensive, a little over $1 per seed after shipping, but I got 100% germination.

I thought Estamino did well for what I was trying to do. It seemed like it made a bigger difference with some varieties, but not all. There's quite a bit of trial and error finding the right rootstock match with a particular variety.

Lee

@wxcrawler where did you get your stock seeds from? From what ive been seing the cost of rootstock seed looks ridiculous but im tempted to try.

I dont think i have soil issues but improving production would be great since my climate is pretty cool for tomatoes and many dont produce much.

[rossomendblot]

I am mostly growing hybrids in the greenhouse next year but there are no black tomato hybrids for sale over here and none of the US seed shops ship to the UK. So now my plan is to grow 2 out of Polaris/Daniel Burson/GGWT/Indian Zebra and graft them to Estamino rootstock. The seed for Estamino cost me ~60 cents each. Thanks for the videos, I will refer to them when it comes to grafting time!

[MissS]

@rossomendblot That's terrible that they haven't any dark hybrids over there. Are they that unpopular that they would not sell well?

[Mark_Thompson]

@rossomendblot I’m always down for some lowkey smuggling, I could try mail something if you like.

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[rossomendblot]

@rossomendblot That's terrible that they haven't any dark hybrids over there. Are they that unpopular that they would not sell well?

Large tomatoes don't seem to be that popular over here in general, I assume due to the short season. Cherries are by far the most popular, followed by cocktails and mediums. I think I've only ever seen seed for Black Krim, Cherokee Purple and one or two others. None of the biggest seed selling companies have any black tomatoes other than Black Cherry, Rosella, Black Opal and Garnet. Most people have probably never grown anything bigger than a black cherry before, they might not even know they exist.

I sent an e-mail to Burpee Europe trying to convince them to bring Dark Star over here, as lots of companies are stocking Burpee-bred varieties now. They've now pulled out of the UK wholesale market altogether, citing import issues due to Brexit.

[rossomendblot]

@rossomendblot I’m always down for some lowkey smuggling, I could try mail something if you like.

Thank you very much for the offer. Tempting as it is (that dang seed itch ), I have committed to the grafting for this year and if it goes well I shouldn't need black hybrids. I do wish we had the range of hybrid beefsteaks that you do in the US, though.

It's crazy that it's more expensive for me to send a letter to someone in the UK than it is for you to send to someone more than 11,000 km away.

[Moth1992]

@rossomendblot do they need to be hybrids? Cant you grow dark heirlooms?

I seeded yesterday some random supermarket seeds so i can practice my surgery technique before trying on my intended seedlings.

[rossomendblot]

@rossomendblot do they need to be hybrids? Cant you grow dark heirlooms?

I seeded yesterday some random supermarket seeds so i can practice my surgery technique before trying on my intended seedlings.

I had a really poor year in the greenhouse in 2023, the yield was almost 50 lb down from 2022. I love growing heirlooms/OPs but the greenhouse can only fit 8 plants and I can't have any unreliable slackers, so it's hybrids only this year for their disease resistance and vigour. Anything non-late blight resistant isn't worth growing outside here anymore, for me, so that means hybrids too.

Good idea about practising, I will try that myself when I get round to buying grafting clips.