grafted tomatoes

[greg77]

hi everyone ,this is my first time on a site like this so please forgive me if i do anything wrong.i got a greenhouse last year and tried tomatoes,chillies and peppers with varied success. some toms i grew from seed and some from bought plants. i recently saw an article praising grafted toms, which i found are easily got but expensive and wanted to know the experts view as to whether they are as good as they say or is this really the right road to go down. any advice would be helpful as i really am an amateur.

[shirlthegirl43]

Hi and welcome to the vine Greg77. I haven't heard of grafted tomatoes and can't really understand why you would bother - there are so many varieties out there all readily available to buy and fairly easy to grow too.

[shirlthegirl43]

That is odd Piskie - I saw your reply before I posted mine

[pigletwillie]

No dog house for you piskie, no idea why your post went awol.

[Phreddy]

I agree with the second poster. Why bother.
Having said that I have some dwarfs and wonder if I could graft on a big vine bit for the BV fruit on the dwarf rooting stock? Must google that!
Why graft? Why bother? Because we can (if we can, that is.)

Interesting thread and welcome - should have put that first, sorry, got carried away by the idea

[wellie]

Hi Greg and warm welcome from Trousers and me....
Interesting question, I read about it somewhere too, and can't think where now, and in the absence of an intelligent answer, I'll await one beside you if I may.

[SueA]

Hi Greg & welcome. I've seen the grafted tomatoes advertised as well & wondered if they were worth a try. I thought that maybe as the rootstocks are used by commercial growers they might be stronger than normal seed grown toms & maybe more resistant to blight but i'm not sure. I think this is the first year they've been available so possibly nobody on here has tried them yet.Dobies have an offer on them at the moment with 6 plants for £14.95 plus a free seed collection 'Grow a Taste of Mexico', link below.
Dobies: THE EXPRESS OFFER - EX38: Turbo Tomato Collection Pot Ready Plants + FREE Seed

[momol]

Hello and welcome to the vine Greg.

We got tomatoes rootstock here sold as seeds and the grower will have to grow them and then graft them with other chosen tomato plant (which said to be very easy procedure but I have no idea).
It is use if you have verticillium , fusarium , nematoda and bacterial wilt but it is not mean to fight blight. Mostly it is used by the green house tomatoes growers here (NL). Hope it help.

[jeannine]

Hi Greg,
I haven't tried grafted tomatoes yet but I'll give them a go this year to see if they are as good as the hype. I saw a trial at Thompson & Morgan last summer and the grafted ones had at least twice as many fruits - so they might be an idea for people where space is really tight.

However, as people have rightly said on here, it's really easy to grow them from seed, or if you're short on time, you can buy 4 tomato seedlings (of good varieties) at Wilkinsons at the moment for £1.50, you can pot them on and grow them on your windowsill till spring and then pop them in growbags.

Whatever you choose to do, let us know how you get on!

[smallblueplanet]

...I haven't tried grafted tomatoes yet but I'll give them a go this year to see if they are as good as the hype. I saw a trial at Thompson & Morgan last summer and the grafted ones had at least twice as many fruits....

I'd have been surprised if they hadn't. Isn't it a bit like these pub signs saying 'Good Food'? What else are they going to say! Lol.

[Snadger]

Or you could try grafting your own Tomtaters and have tomatoes on the top and spuds below ground!

[Liz and Steve]

HI Grapes,

tomatoes are grafted to improve plant vigour and vitality - like a lot of other things we graft.

As a lad I had a friend who was a commercial tomato grower. He had acres under glass and put tonnes of fresh tomatoes into Liverpool and Manchester every year. He grafted all his plants - if memory serves, over 10,000 plants a year. He grew spectacular tomatoes and obviously thought the effort worth the return.

A word of caution though - to anyone thinking of having a go, there is a real knack to tomato grafting. My friend grafted his plants when they were perhaps 25cm tall. This means that the stems are still very soft and it is easy to get the grafting cuts wrong, wasting both plants. I remember one customer of my friend buying 500 plants to graft his own and losing the lot (which is why I don't graft mine!!).

Regards all.

Steve

[smallblueplanet]

....tomatoes are grafted to improve plant vigour and vitality - like a lot of other things we graft.

I thought stuff like fruit was grafted to 'reduce vigour' ie grow a smaller tree?

How much more tomatoes do you get, 3 plants of Conchita cost £9.95?

Tomato Turbo Conchita Pot Ready Plants
Professional tomato growers graft the very tastiest varieties onto extremely vigorous specialist rootstocks. The result?... Tomatoes that produce fruit consistently full of flavour, the perfect size and colour, free from diseases and crop heavily for longer. Now, thanks to Dobies, you too can enjoy your best tomato season ever! Over 30 years of expert commercial growing technology has enabled us to offer you our very own newly grafted Turbo tomato stock of remarkably strong and healthy plants which in turn will result in bumper yields.
Stronger growing, larger, healthier plants.
Much greater resistance to pests and diseases.
Yield more top quality fruit over a longer period.
Can be grown in an unheated greenhouse or sheltered patio.
Conchita - A superb large cherry tomato with fine flavour. Gives huge crops on trusses bearing as many as twenty fruits.

[Seahorse]

Or you could try grafting your own Tomtaters and have tomatoes on the top and spuds below ground!

Snadger, I love it! Could work... I think??? I'm off to research how to have a go!

[Paul Wagland]

I saw a trial at Thompson & Morgan last summer and the grafted ones had at least twice as many fruits.

I'd have been surprised if they hadn't. Isn't it a bit like these pub signs saying 'Good Food'? What else are they going to say! Lol.

The obvious difference being that Jeannine saw the two different sets of plants first hand, and the grafted ones had more fruit on. I don't think T&M are going to fiddle their own trials, what with their staff being some of the most skilled and respected horticulturalists in the world. They make a lot of money selling tomato seeds too.

I've been promised some grafted and non-grafted toms of the same variety by the people at Suttons, so I can do my own trial. Really looking forward to it!