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Graft your own?

thrxvsthrxvs Posts: 32
in Fruit & veg
Hi folks.
You can get grafted veg plants eg toms, aubergine etc from certain suppliers nowadays which boast big claims about higher performance compared to "normal" plants and with big price tags to match.
I was watching this video:
It doesn't seem too hard to do it at home with a bit of care and practice, and presumably with similar results to commercial and I'm thinking about giving it a go as a trial this year and ramp it up next year if successful...  Does anyone do this or has tried to do this? I grow around 50 - 60 tomato plants a year, mostly plum and heirloom (all sown from seed, none grafted!) , so would definitely be worth getting the advertised benefits of grafted.

Posts

  • clarke.bruntclarke.brunt Posts: 215
    I did once get a 'blind' tomato seedling, i.e. it germinated, and had its seed-leaves, but seemed to lack a growing point to make any further progress. So I rather pointlessly grafted a side-shoot from one of the other seedlings onto it. I wouldn't envisage much difficulty in grafting tomatoes. I sort-of skipped through the video, but don't think there was any mention of what was used as the root-stock. There's only going to be any point to the exercise if the root-stock variety has a root-system which is 'better' (in some way) then what the scion-variety would have had. So is there information about what varieties to use as root-stock, whether they are available (except to the professional growers), and what makes them 'better'.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    The only commercial reason to graft is if the cultivar you want is susceptible to some root pest/infection and you can use a rootstock that isn't. It's used in greenhouses where rotation isn't possible. It's easy enough to do and if you want to have a go look at somewhere like Moles seeds they sell the seeds for the rootstocks as well, though you may have to buy rather more than you want.

    I grow around 150 tomatoes each year and until I get an issue with disease or pests I won't be bothering grafting. I do use movable greenhouses though so I hope I won't get any nasty build ups in the soil.
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