Grafting Greenhouse Tomatoes for Soil based Culture

Grafting Greenhouse Tomatoes
for Soil based Culture
Judson Reid
Cornell Vegetable Program
Grafting
• A very old practice.
• Common for apples, peaches, grapes, etc.
• Used to add vigor, hardiness and disease
resistance.
• Very common in hydroponic greenhouses.
Grafting
• We graft a desirable fruiting variety onto a
vigorous rootstock.
• Afterwards we can allow 1 or 2 leaders to
grow from the new plant.
• All root stock growth must be pruned.
• Our rootstock=Maxifort
• Our scion=Geronimo
Transplanting
• Transplanted on March
30.
• Spacing was 16” double
staggered row
• Unpinched grafts planted
at regular spacing.
• Grafted plants with single
sucker or double leader
were given double
spacing.
4 Treatments
Graft with
1sucker
GRAFT
Graft with
single leader
GRAFT
GRAFT
Ungrafted
Graft pinched to
2 leaders
Multiple leaders affects in-row
spacing
Treatment
Plants per block
In-row spacing
A- Control (ungrafted
Geronimo)
8
16” in-row spacing with a
double staggered row.
B- Untopped graft with 1
trained gormandizer
(sucker) plus 1 leader
4
48” in-row spacing with a
double row.
C- Topped graft with 2
leaders
4
32” in-row spacing with a
double row.
Average Pounds of Tomatoes per
Plant, Grafts vs. Un-Grafted
18.9a
21.6
16.0ab
10.2b*
*Means with different letters (grouping) differ significantly according to Fishers’s
Protected LSD (P<0.05). LSD=8.4
Average Number of Tomatoes per
Plant, Grafts vs. Un-Grafted
31.5
25.3
No significant differences between groups.
39.0
38.1
Average Fruit Weight, Grafts vs.
Un-Grafted
7.9ab
8.1a
9.1
6.4b
Means with different letters (grouping) differ significantly according to
Fishers’s Protected LSD (P<0.05). LSD=2.8
Earliness?
Does Grafting Pay?
• If grafting added a cost of 3 dollars per
plant, and we averaged $1/lb, we would
need an increase of 3 lbs to break even.
• In this trial we increased yield by 11.4
pounds per plant when comparing
unpinched graft plants to ungrafted plants.
• The other 2 graft treatments increased
yield by 6 and 9 pounds per plant.
Conclusions
• Grafting increased our yields and
earliness.
• Increased costs were offset by these
yields.
• May be of particular interest to
greenhouses who are beginning to have
soil problems.
• I’ll have 2 new sites in 2008
THANKS!