Tomato Grafting Demystified (and Why Anyone Can Do It) 

For us cheapscates, it is nice to know that the root plant tops can be put into water for rooting and have twice the plants.

Excellent introduction to grafting tomatoes (I honestly didn’t know that was a thing)!! You didn’t mention when to remove the clips or what you look for that says it’s time to do so.

Nicely shown. I have been grafting for 10 years. Latest studies indicate that absolute darkness does nothing but delay your plants healing. I tried this change this year and sure enough, one day in absolute darkness and then four days in subdued lighting and I could reduce my humidity much faster. I water everything well 24 hours before grafting and don't water again till the union is healed. Studies also tend to (sometimes) show taste changes in grafted slicers vs regularly grown. Working hypothesis is that the superior rootstock drives more water into the fruit thereby diluting the flavor. I put my Hawaiian pineapple and Great white heirlooms up against non grafted and sure enough there was a noticeable difference but only if they were directly compared to one another. I've been experimenting with hormones applied at the union site in order to improve my success rate. I found a dip in dilute kelp extract pulled my failure rate from 16 to 9 percent. I have no clue why. If I get much yield increase I've not noticed but I've not done a direct comparison. However, the reason I started was because my soil is crawling with diseases and I wanted heirlooms. Grafting and serenade soil treatment has the plants yield till frost. I'm curious as to why so many commenters are so put off by this. As you said, grafting is not new and the Japanese have been top grafting for many years, in fact I believe top grafting is sometimes called "Japanese grafting". Good stuff all around.

Love Sunday mornings for this reason. Another great video. Not going down this rabbit hole for about another couple seasons yet, want to master growing the tomatoes before investing the time, but always love learning new skills. Thanks again Jesse

Interesting video. I'm not there yet but will experiment with this once I'm more established. I'm only about 4 months into living on the new homestead. Goodbye suburbs and hello country living. I'm absolutely loving it so far!

I absolutely love the videos, I'm fairly certain I have 50+ watched since finding you guys maybe a month ago. When are the yellow hats coming back in stock? Your content has me learning as much as I can as often as I can (and the wife and kids often times as well). Thanks for all you do!

this is so so cool :) I learned grafting at university and this video was the perfect balance of expectation vs. reality I am looking forward to following this religiously… a fun fact I’ll put out there is you may consider grafting eggplant scion onto tomato rootstock for diseases resistance and/or vigor if you’d like to experiment and vice versa, when I first learned this was an option I about leaped out of my socks but I still haven’t ventured into the world of grafting after leaving school, thank you for the consistent content it’s both entertaining and informative and you do such a good job making a fun subject one-hundred times more exciting… all the best!!!

Looks extremely time consuming. I've personally grafted my medical can plants with good success, but culled it from the garden before flowering started. Now I want to experiment with hearing that it can I crease yeild. Love your show and watch every video! Great job guys!

That was interesting. I enjoy learning new things.

Just met Mike (halfacrefarm) from Dallas, Texas that talked to you about a lettuce bacteria... The first part of this video reminded me of this.

Interesting. Will come back for updates !

I cheaped out and bought standard top soil for my garden, so I could obtain twice the volume of soil over a garden mix. I've got a few yards of compostin a pile, and a few mushroom buckets, that will get mixed in this fall. In the meantime, I've been brewing an extract and watering this into the heavy soil twice a week. I poked some holes around the plants so liquid can easily reach the roots. . Wish me luck!

I can't wait for the yield comparison video!

Cool. Good stuff. I had started to see the grafted tomatoes for sale. 15$ for a tomato plant seemed a bit nuts. Might make more sense/ cents for southern farmers with high pest pressure.

I have been growing Heidi and Opalka paste tomatoes for years, both heirlooms, very successfully. Since my name is Heidi Opalka I would love to graft the two together but for a home gardener the investment is too big but your video was very interesting

Hello brother Your planting method is amazing.👍👍👍

A great video. Well made and informative.

Been making a living growing high tunnel tomatoes for 28 years and have been grafting for five years. I only graft my red slicers as they are the "BIG" money makers. Cherries and grapes are good sellers but are labor intensive and grow like weeds so grafting them on vigorous root stock just makes more work pruning them. My only red slicer I grow is Big Beef and Big Beef plus after trying dozens of other varieties over the years. Three of my tunnels have had back to back tomatoes for over 25 years and the tomatoes are producing better each year as I till in a windrow of grass clippings each spring to add beneficial fungi and nutrients. I also feed through the four drip lines on each bed. I find the biggest gain from grafting comes late in the season when fruit on un-grafted plants tend to size down as fusarium builds up even in the resistant Big Beef. I live across the river from you in Indiana. This year I grafted 725 Big Beef Plus for my high tunnels.

I'm proud of you for not swearing when you dropped the tray because I'm sure you didn't off camera either.

Man! Dropping that tray just to show us the variability & realities of a working farm took some real commitment. I doff my No Till cap to you. 🤣

Really great info. I ve always thought tomatoes were already too much work so avoided grafting, but then never had problems with soil borne disease. Hope they work out well for you and keep us posted on yields. Are you comparing them with non grafted of same varieties?

oh noooooooo bummer eh! Thanks for the video though, as always it was fun to watch and great to learn new skills. Keen to see how this turns out later in the season.

Very informative. We are first time doing this and our labors do 120/hr depending on size. As it grows very fast we are doing 80/hr now lol

New to your channel (first video I've seen of yours) how interesting I knew nothing of this.

Thank you for sharing.

Not sure if you did this but try orienting the clips so the pressure at the union site is perpendicular to the face of the cuts rather than parallel. That tightens the junction between scion and rootstock making it more likely to callus over. This greatly improves alignment of each cambium.

Touched base on grafting 3yrs ago (Tomato). And my conclusion is that like knitting, calligraphy, et al, is a process where you have to get stuck in and perfect the process through hands on experience. Taking tons of notes also helps, if your not in ideal conditions.

I’m a gardener, not a mad scientist Jesse! At least, not yet, but this is a good start 😂

I’ve had a couple of goes at grafting aubergines (eggplants) with mixed success (lack of time/effort/facilities). Now buy commercially reared grafted plugs. I’d say I get at least twice the harvest compared to non grafted of the same variety. I put them on strings and side shoot like tomatoes, letting two stems grow up. I think your losses are small and I’m sure your efforts will be rewarded.

If I graft an heirloom tomato to a highly productive, disease resistant Dwarf tomato would it work? Love your content! I hit the notification bell 🔔 ❤

I'd be more interested in a tailored landrace experiment. Planting several different varieties with desired traits (blight resistant but poor yield, great yield but poor disease resistance, etc.). Seeing what you could come up with that would perform best for your conditions and goals.

Tomato Grafting .. Yeay really nice ideas.

If youre worried about disease, you can add h202 to your misting water. Hydroponics stores have a 29% hydrogenperoxide, rather than the 3% you get at the pharmacy. Alternatively you can ad baking soda or greencure to chance the mist water ph to make it inhospitable to fungal infections.

Oooh! Dropping a tray of seedlings super suxx!

Ouch! I had 3 trays of brassicas knocked off a rack ths year. Rescued most of them but it took some time.

i love this video

I'm trialing the DRO141TX stock from Johnny's. I definitely wish I had started the stock about 7-10 days later than my scions. Not only did DRO germ much faster but was much more vigorous. I grew about 50% more scions than stock so I could pick and choose which to graft, but it was still rough. I found that my cherry and grape varieties had the worst unions. I don't have disease issues, but I have issues competing with the other established farms in my area for first to market. I'm actually grafting some determinates for use in a tunnel in the hope that I can push them twice as hard as an indeterminate and be first or at least concurrent to market with the other farms and get that sweet early tomato rush. The idea is the root vigor enhances the traditional earliest of determinate varieties. Also, because my root-to-scion sizing was not great I tried to follow some traditional tree grafting techniques for size mismatching. A graft will still take if the cambium layers of both the stock and scion overlap, allowing circulation to take place. I'm hoping that will be my saving grace but I kept all my extra scions just in case this year's grafting ends up being a fail. Curious to see the results!

This was really interesting to see and learn about. I just have a small family backyard garden and will never graft tomatoes. You gave good info and are always fun to watch. I appreciate your simple easy to understand teaching. For someone who doesn't like tomatoes (I grow them for the fam who like them) is there a variety or two that are really good that one who doesn't like tomatoes may like? I really want to like them, just need the right variety.

Maybe it’s because I am a mad scientist but even though I’m just a home gardener I’ve been getting ready to start doing this for awhile. Now that I’m starting to do some tunnel growing I plan to graft my tunnel tomatoes next year.

cool, will be interesting to see the results compared to controls...we do have controls right? XD I remember the big thing 20yrs ago was PRD but it never seem to hear of it these days

Cloning plants is always fun as well

I just finished day 3 after side graft. All is looking well. Small sample size at first try but 200% success. Now to let them grow for a bit (I guess) show some roots from the bottom of the new pot, then make the first cut in the scion stock (I guess) - I believe in the process and in my small test garden, I’ll grow one each, in grafted and several grafted for each variety, Brandwine, Sakura, San Marzano.

Its an interesting thing numerically. If you don't have an issue yet, its likely not worthwhile; if you induce an issue over time, maybe so. Also financially, small bits such as the scion 'tray' soil and space investment going back into the business with basically zero waste after a short time could be considered. Fun stuff overall. Diseases suck, tech is great when applied well, distribution of knowledge is always good , except when it is not, having options.. pretty much always good. Thanks for the video.

So you dropped the tray. They say practice makes perfect. Keep it up and you will soon be an expert.

Quite sure that this is something that we will never attempt. As we have a small "family" garden and not interested in commercial sales and so forth. Then, as always, it is good to learn things and see how science is progressing in the favor of agriculture. Thinking that rather than supporting the mega giants of Budget and Enterprise could we not all support "Rent a Tomato Graft"?

Thank you

Super thanks

LOL! The ending had me laughing. Early on, I was using my garage for my plant starts, and had several rolling racks, probably about 20 flats of plant starts, that I had moved closer to the garage door, I'd inadvertently opened the garage door with the garage door opener and knocked over the plant racks. I probably saved about 20% of them that still had their labels in the pots. As the saying goes $hit happens, just try not to repeat it.

Thanks!

mullet lol! Jessie is such a good comedian

Maybe my wife is a grafted tomato. She too likes a dark, warm, humid environment. This lady would bring a blanket to the beach

What is the temperature need for in the chamber

Most of that equipment is un-necessary if you are really on a budget. Each one will likely improve results and confidence; but I successfully graft tomatoes with a standard razor blade, cleaned with alcohol, the Johnnys clips and no humidity dome even. I only loose about 10%. It is surprisingly easy, just intimidating.

Did you do the follow up on this?

Nice

Well this was just fascinating! I'm curious (from a home grower perspective) if this maybe a technique useful for repairs or consolidation. Specifically, I have a Notorious GSD that rips through my garden space and snaps stems. I've lost more than one well developed pepper plant due to his keen lizard hunting focus. I'm curious now if I might be more successful with grafting than I have been in the past with splinting. Also, last year I had a 30 ft bed of various Beefsteak heirloom varieties... one plant reached 8 feet woven up a trellis but produced only 2 fruits. Would I have been able to side graft suckers from more productive varieties onto this vigorous but nearly sterile vine??? Absolutely brilliant topic to research! Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Using warm water spray seems to help.

Thanks! ..I subscribed to the channel as well, guess I’m now “awesome” too! If you can share, what led you to choosing “cherry” varieties ? Thank you!

is that a normal water? 6:30

How would you select the rootstock variety?

Just wondering but this *was* released on April 1st, right ? ? Makes me wonder……

please let me know; the name of the rootstock tomatoes resistant to salt! I will be happy to try it

You missed something. Do you remove the clips at some point? When? How?

I do like grafting apple twigs to other trees.

In Wartime Kitchen and Gardens, the gardener steams the soil to kill off diseases and insect eggs. What do yiu think of doing something like this? He puts it in a water trough with hot coals underneath

My biggest issue with grafting is the difference of growth for the root stocks vs the scion when starting seeds. I know a little planning will help but its trickier than the actual grafting. We put them in bottom watering trays so the root stock stays well hydrated and keeps weeping nutrient rich liquid to the scion before healing. We then just put them under our seed starting tables with no germ chamber etc. humidity domes and germ chambers can cause a lot more advantageous rooting. So a mildly dry air environment works well for us since we keep the soil of rootstock soaked

are you taking interns ? this year ? how to contact ?

17:19 That's the best part. 🤭

just thinking??? could you use a green light instead of complete darkness??

I highly recommend Bootstrap Farmer trays and domes. I've had mine several years and I abuse them (the bottom trays often become chicken feeders) and they last, they also hold soil blocks nicely.

I understand it but personally I think it is too much work. I'd rather find a tomato cultivar that works well for my garden rather than be grafting every spring! Thanks for the video.

how does this application work with GMO

Once I develop my perfect potato I am going to graft them to tomatoes.

no link for "hello my name is" labels?

👍👍👍👍

i am always wondering why someone would graft tomatoes

Oh man..🤦

2:42 no cheese, meat, garbanzos in it, Jess?

Dropping a tray yourself is much better than having a cat knock a tray off overnight. Most people won't be tempted to kill themselves...

ohhh man, i'd love to be able to throw sun golds on top of a dwarf rootstock so that i can get rid of all my big trellises.

Nooooo! Aaaah! Shit dude. Respect from Africa 🇿🇦

Do you believe that heirlooms are weaker than hybrids...... is that what you're saying?

Good channel. Jay Cutler with a cigarette vibes

great stuff

Awesome as usual, probating demotion for the drop, careful with the babies.

Anybody have feedback on how large you can successfully graft - side or top - tomatoes and what to use as clips? Cellophane? Plastic clothes pins? Wrap with string over plastic? Thx!

Thanks!