Grafted Tomato Plants

Last March Cindy grafted some of her tomato seedlings onto tomato root stock (see:  Dr. Cindy and Dr. Kay Operate), to give the tomato plants a better chance to fend off Fusarium Wilt and other fungus and bacterial diseases that attack tomato plants.

Last year's experiment with one Box Car Willie tomato plant was a success, so of course this year Cindy decided to try several different varieties of tomato: Box Car Willie, Stupice and Sioux and several different root stocks.  The Sioux plant and one of the Box Car Willies didn't survive for long, and Cindy hasn't pulled out the Stupice plants yet, but the other two grafted Box Cars and the control did very well.  All three were planted in the same bed and all three produced tomatoes, although we didn't keep track of which plant produced the most fruit this year.

Since the tomatoes are now at the end of their productive season, Cindy tore the Box Car Willie plants out yesterday, so we were able to compare the root systems of all three of those plants.

A Tale of Three Box Cars

From left to right in this picture, the control plant is on the left, the middle plant was grafted onto RST-04-106 rootstock from Tomato Growers Supply Company, and the plant on the right was grafted onto Estamino F-1 rootstock from Natural Gardening Company.

The main stem and subsidiary stems on the Estamino rootstock plant were larger than those on the RST-04-106 and about twice the size of the stems on the control plant.

Estamino and Control Plant Roots 

Estamino plant roots on the left and control plant roots on the right.

I have a feeling that next year there will be more grafting.