Tomato Grafting: after 7 days

The tomato grafting project is working. As you can see the result in these pictures. I waited too long to do the grafting and much of the scion (top) seedlings were to big to fit into the grafting clips. Next year I will be ready.

Some of the grafts wilted and are dead. But less than 1/4 of the plants wilted. The German Striped are strong looking despite having poor grafting union. See the bottom right of the following picture. These are German Stripe. The rest are Brandywine.

Brandywine and German Stripe tomatoes grafted with Colosus root stock. Click to enlarge.

I hope to have enough Brandywine to do a good A/B test. I will plant 2 half rows (25 ft). Half of regular Brandywine (A) and half of grafted plants (B) will be planted in these side by side rows. Each 1/2 row will have 15 plants. I hope to have a few for my smaller garden too. There I will do a smaller similar test on the German Stripes.

In the background of this picture are the (A) tomato seedlings. They will have a big head start. Notice they are twice as tall as the grafts. I will also be able to plant the (A) seedlings on their side, burying most of the stems with just a few leaves above the soil. This helps the plant produce roots along the buried stem.

The grafted seedlings (B) must be planted with the graft above the ground so that all the roots are Colosus roots. But this will not be as effective as planting it on its side. I hope this does not skew my test.

Unless there is a frost in the 10 day forecast, these tomatoes will be planted in 2 weeks or about April 1st.