Grafting tomatoes

[Potstubsdustbins]

Tom,

I think you will find that they use the same rootstock. Instead of peppers google capsicum and for aubs try egg plant.

Colin

[tumbling tom]

Okay, I am putting my seed order in on Friday and am definitly going to order Aegis and some grafting clips.

Going to start a new thread and continually show direct comparison between the pepper, aub and tomato plants that have and have not been grafted and grown in identical conditions ( thats if people are interested ).

The only thing I want to be sure of is that they are safe! As it says that fruit produced by the Aegis is not edible, dont wanna be poisoning the family!

Am gonna graft alicante toms. Is that ok?

Any recommendations for the peppers and aubs?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Tom, the fruits are perfectly safe it is just the Aegis toms that are disgusting so I am told.

As to your experiment it will be very interesting. A friend gave me a purchased grafted Shirley the year before last and from my experience all I would say is they will need feeding like heck and have plenty of supports ready to stop the fruits breaking the vines.

Colin

[tumbling tom]

Thanks for the reassurance Colin.

Going to start my seeds at the end of the month so expect a thread to start mid/late Feb.

If anyone can recommend some varieties I will keep it in mind.

[TonyO]

Although I had a decent crop of tomatoes last season, I was surprised at how small the root ball was for the plants when I was clearing them away. I use fresh soil every year to avoid disease and a lot of it was unused by the plants, so this year, I'm going to try my hand at grafting toms. theres a fair bit of info on how to do it on the net as well as a few vids on youtube, so I've ordered Aegis seeds as my root stock. I'd like to try some of the american rootstock seeds such as maxifort / beaufort but they dont seem available in the UK. & I'll let you know how the grafting goes - fingers crossed.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Maxifort are available but only in commercial quanties, making it totally unrealistic for the amateur gardener.

Colin

[tumbling tom]

Well thats it. Just spent the last 3 hours grafting!!

A bit tricky at first but once I got into the swing......

Done Aubs, Peppers, Toms and Chillis. They have now had a good spraying of water and are in my home made incubator....a couple of sealed props with a towel over them to keep the light out.

A few looked droopy but hopefully should be fine. We will see in the next 7 to 12 days I suppose.

Anyone got any tips as to what I should do in the meantime?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Look, Dream and Sit on your hands

Good luck Colin

[tumbling tom]

Well another update.

Checked them all on Sunday (after 7 days ) and some mixed results. About 50% of the toms have closed up nicely and can say that for now they look like they are going in the right direction. About the same hit rate on the peppers but none of the aubs at all. This isnt surprising really as the aubs scions were tiny compared to the rootstock (must remeber next year to give the aubs a one month head start on rootstock).

With the ones that hadnt taken completly I have attempted to make new grafts on them as both the scions and rootstock still looked healthy, just the grafted part was a bit dead so I cut it off. I have this time though decided to use the glue method as its a lot quicker to do and it would be nice to see if it works.

Have put them all back in the dark now but I think on Thursday will take out the ones that look connected/grafted and pop them on the windowsill and expose them to light to see if they start growing.


Thinking ahead to next year does anyone know of any rootstocks that aren't F-1. Would like to actually grow a plant to get some seeds out of it this year as the aegis I bought from moles is too deer to justify experimenting with every year. What about just using a really strong and vigorous tom plant?

[Paulieb]

Well another update.

Checked them all on Sunday (after 7 days ) and some mixed results. About 50% of the toms have closed up nicely and can say that for now they look like they are going in the right direction. About the same hit rate on the peppers but none of the aubs at all. This isnt surprising really as the aubs scions were tiny compared to the rootstock (must remeber next year to give the aubs a one month head start on rootstock).

With the ones that hadnt taken completly I have attempted to make new grafts on them as both the scions and rootstock still looked healthy, just the grafted part was a bit dead so I cut it off. I have this time though decided to use the glue method as its a lot quicker to do and it would be nice to see if it works.

Have put them all back in the dark now but I think on Thursday will take out the ones that look connected/grafted and pop them on the windowsill and expose them to light to see if they start growing.


Thinking ahead to next year does anyone know of any rootstocks that aren't F-1. Would like to actually grow a plant to get some seeds out of it this year as the aegis I bought from moles is too deer to justify experimenting with every year. What about just using a really strong and vigorous tom plant?

How do you get on with the grafting plants last year? Was the yield much better in comparison to the others. I've read on one webiste that yield can be increased by 50%.

I'm looking at grafting as a little experiment this year but as the rootstock seeds are SO expensive, and time being precious, I'm wondering whether to just buy a grafted plant for comparison and save the experiment for another year.

[tumbling tom]

A total failure. Kept everything in the prop for a couple of weeks where a lot of them looked healthy and grafted. Within a couple of days of them coming out the moist prop all but one wilted.

Although most of them looked grafted obviously something didn't work. Possibly my grafting skills, will probably not waste my money this year.

The one tom plant that survived was fine. Plant was vigorous but fruit wise about the Sam as the others.

These results are probably down to my inability to graft, not necessarily the actual rootstock.

[Paulieb]

Ah right - cheers for the update. This probably just reinforces my thoughts of sticking with a bought grafted plant for this year.

I am doing an RHS course and at the moment were are practising grafting (mainly with respect to fruit trees), so maybe next year with more time to redo a lost batch, I'll try a few grafts of my own.

Thanks again.