[Swing Swang]

Project for next year.

Might try grafting my outdoor tomatoes onto hardy rootstocks. Apparently done by a lot of commercial growers to produce earlier crops outside that can withstand lower spring temperatures. Increasingly grafted plants are being supplied by the catalogues (at a price). I have also seen an article in the press which described the grafting of two plants together. The weaker of the two plants was sacrificed above the scion to produce a single stemmed plant with a really big rootball.

Questions:

What variety should be grown for the rootstock to increase cold-weather resistance, and who supply the seed?

Commercial growers use nifty little clear plastic cylinders to support the graft - are these available in small quantities to domestic growers or is there a techique more suited to home-grafting?

Regards,

Philip

[Lardman]

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=70865.0

My first set were dessicated in the heat of the greenhouse  Im waiting for the next set to get a little bigger for a second attempt.

[Growster...]

This an interesting topic SS.

Didn't someone grow toms on potato stems once?

[Swing Swang]

@ Lardman - thanks for the link back to a previous thread, seems like you and Kristen have answered the questions that I posed. Would be very interested to know how your second attempt go.

SS

[Robster]

Really interested to know how you get on, the succesful technique and best root stocks.
I saw someone review these in a mag, I think it was Toby Buckland, and they seemed to be great for quality but stupidly expensive.  As with most things I think you can achieve just as good results yourself if you put in the effort.  Good luck.

[gillie]

Out of my first go at grafting I think that two out of seven may have succeeded. 

The two 'successes' are pretty puny compared to their ungrafted brethren but we shall see, there is more to this grafting business than meets the eye.

I think that my mistake was grafting too low down the stem of the rootstock.  I now have some more seed and am trying again. 

[Lardman]

I think that my mistake was grafting too low down the stem of the rootstock.  I now have some more seed and am trying again. 

How did you get on with the clips ? I was using a diagonal cut across both of the plants but couldn't get a good contact with the clips. Although a few of my grafts took they were connected by such a small amount they would never have amounted to anything.

[gillie]

I was using the 'side grafting' method demonstrated in the Johnny's Seeds video.

My failures were usually due to the rootstock dying back, I think because I tried to graft below the point that the cotyledons had been.  I tried with two of the failures to resuscitate the scions in water and re-graft them onto new rootstocks using a diagonal cut.  The clips did not work too well for this.  One scion died immediately and the other was proclaimed dead today, but I am not sure whether this was a graft failure or overheating.  I wonder if adding a matchstick as a splint to the graft and maybe use two clips would work.  (I have done 'matchstick grafting' before to repair the accidental breakage of a plant)

My plants seemed to be about the same size as Johnny's but I think that next time around I will wait until the plants are a bit bigger.

My husband has suggested growing the rootstocks on until they are quite large, taking sideshoots rooting them and then grafting onto them to prevent the cotyledon problem.  It would be an awful hassle though.

[Lardman]

Im trying a V cut on the next lot.

I've not had any die back from the rootstock - but then I have cut above the cotyledons. Theres certainly more to this grafting lark than I initially thought. I think next time Im also going to try using some heat sink tub or even some masking tape rather than the clips.

Here - have a laugh at my mad scientist results.

[Kristen]

It would be an awful hassle though.

Hehehehe ... yup! there is that ... but so is changing the soil in the greenhouse border ... at least grafting can be done from the comfort of an armchair!