Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ive been studying grafting recently in relation to growing a premium fruit on a commercial level.

I was lucky enough to have been given (restricted) access to a commercial tomato greenhouse farm in my area recently and to see things done on an organised professional level was somewhat amazing and also deflating at the same time. It was primarily hydroponic.

The thread is not intended to teach nor share what I have been shown or seen but more so for us to learn and discover things together.

We have all seen the images of these farms and in the flesh they are nothing but fantastic, I have no more to add to that.

I am not a commercial farming scout and doubt I will ever be but I think that technology that is and has been used in commercial Hydro an now AP can be marginally simulated in our own backyards to wow our taste buds for family, friends and ourselves to enjoy.

The technology is not new and we have all purchased grafts over time but I think for any of us looking at pushing the boundaries at home this may be a good place to start discussion.

So grafting tomato's?

*Ryan and others please add or correct*

Why graft?

Grafting is having the ability of using a productive, tasty heirloom (or others) line of tommie and attaching it to a strong disease resistant hybrid.

So using the scion (top) of a well bred heirloom and attaching it to a root stock hybrid gives you a strong base with all the goodness of old school fruit up top. Earlier fruit in the season for longer and stronger throughout the growing year.

Heirloom and other tomato varieties are susceptible to soil bourne diseases like Cladosporium, Verticillium, two races of Fusarium, crown rot, root rot, root eelworm, corky root rot and stem rot, plus tomato mosaic virus, early blight, late blight etc etc. Thats not to mention drought, flooding, heat and cold.

Using a hybrid root stock that has resistance to these issues will not only give your favourite tomato a fighting chance, but will produce faster, fatter, tastier and more productive tomato clusters for a longer season. Especially if grafting is done correctly.

So how to graft and what to graft?

Theres a multitude of options and what is best is probably situation and experience specific.

To simplify Ill group the options.

'Approach' and 'cleft' grafting are basically the same thing, just cutting the stems in different ways and then attaching using clips to hold the graft.

'Micrografting', 'Tube grafting' and 'Top grafting' is moving into a more commercial arena as it is faster and can be performed when seedling are young (approx 3 weeks) and there is no need for any special hospital treatment.

Although tube grafting is a common commercial process I believe that micro grafting is now leading the way for tomato production. Hopefully Ryan might give us a small hint to his processes but I assume he would use this method.

Feel free to google around there are squillions of 'how to videos' so post here as you see fit.

Ive started my own experiment with heirloom tigarllelas and tommie toe and will post progress.

Any discussion, correction or input welcome..

Grafting may have its place in commercial spots they are after yield only
As far as taste go I have NEVER bought a tomato that tastes any were as good as the ones you produce
Even boxes if sauce tomato [romas ]are nowhere as tasty as home grown ones
I have bought grafted ones and put them in aqua and I must say the results weren't outstanding
Some were in my thread at the old place there are photos of the home grown stuff taking over the place

..
Thanks Charlie...
A post in a system thread sparked my interest in grafting, but I have not had the time to start searching techniques..

The issue I saw was some dwarf tommies get smothered by larger varieties, within the confines of our GB's, and I wondered how to graft a dwarf to the upper branches of big brother.. and then suspend that from sky hooks
..
.

Great topic and will be following with interest!

I've done some micro-propagation in sterile culture tubes. It does require an initial investment but is not too bad. What I did, didn't involve micro-grafting, it was cloning. I was taking the growing point called the apical meristem out of a plant and rotating it to cause it to divide in different directions. Then you remove these growths and repeat. Eventually you grow the plants but by that time if you've done it well you can get thousands of a single clone of plants. I only toyed with it but here's a really good place to start for beginners who have a bit of science background. In some ways it's a lot like cooking.

http://www.amazon.com/Plants-Test-Tubes-Introduction-Micropropogation/dp/1604692065

You can make a ghetto version of a glove box or make your own Laminar Flow Hood using an old furnace squirrel cage fan and a HEPA filter. The HEPA filter should be replaceable. Either of these will help keep your cultures free from contaminants. I forget the specs on the HEPA filter but it removes bacteria from the air and the air flows out directly toward you as parallel flows. This image gives the idea - http://glossary.periodni.com/glossary.php?en=laminar+flow

Here's what a commercial unit looks like - http://cepclab.org.in/?p=358

Cheers