Box Car Willie Tomato Experiment

Last year one of the tomato plants we grew was a Box Car Willie, an indeterminate variety that was expected to produce a heavy crop of 6 to 10 ounce tomatoes.  We got 12.5 pounds of tomatoes from Box Car Willie, but the plant unfortunately developed Fusarium Wilt and had to be taken out.  Fusarium Wilt is caused by a fungus that invades the plants through the roots and eventually kills the plant.

Box Car Willie plants--Control on Left, Graft on Right

So this year Cindy decided to run an experiment by trying to graft a Box Car Willie plant onto some resistant tomato root stock in the hope that the root stock would make the plant better able to fend off the pathogens that cause Fusarium Wilt.  Both the root stock and the tomato plants were started from seed.

Once the plants were about a quarter inch in diameter, she used grafting tape to splice the two plants together and planted the grafted plant in potting soil.  The plan was to raise it in a carefully controlled environment and then plant it and an ungrafted Box Car Willie plant side by side in the same bed.

The plan went awry when we had to leave for a week shortly after the plants were grafted, and we had no idea whether the graft would take while we were gone.  But the grafted plant survived and actually looked pretty healthy when we returned.

In fact, the grafted plant, on the right in these pictures, is now taller and healthier looking than the ungrafted control Box Car Willie plant on the left.

Four Days Later

So far they are both growing very well, putting on several inches of new growth just in the four days that elapsed between these two pictures.

My only reservation about this experiment is that if both these plants survive, we're going to be up to our kneecaps in Box Car Willie tomatoes, in addition to all the tomatoes from all the other varieties of tomato she's planted.

We'll keep you posted about the experiment as it progresses.