I'm going to revive this old thread. I've been trying to graft tomatoes and had variable success. First, I don't have a great record when it comes to graft survival. The few grafted tomatoes that I have produced typically come in the year late and don't get the best planting locations. A couple of grafted tomatoes that were planted at reasonable times produced a lot of foliage and very few if any fruit. But I keep trying because we have soil viruses that decimate the ungrafted tomatoes by late August. I keep trying, hoping that a grafted tomato will produce into September or October.
As noted, I've been grafting tomatoes for a few years and generally have had poor success - until this year; well, sort of. I started my rootstocks and scions at the same time using Jiffy peat pods. I had highly variable germination rates and near total damp off failures. I think I'm finally done with Jiffy peat pods except for hardy plants like melons.
I replanted, but that put me far behind my original schedule. Here in California's Central Valley we can plant tomatoes outdoors as early as March. In my replant I used normal potting soil and the germination success rate was much better. I was busy with other tasks and didn't get to the grafting as soon as I would have liked, but finally got around to it. I grafted a variety of scions to the root stocks using silicon clips and the inclined cut graft method. One important thing I did was that I made sure that the graft was oriented so that the inclined cut was "clamped together" by the silicone clip. You can kind of see what I mean if you zoom in on the photo below and look for color differences between the scion and root stock.
After grafting, I put the tomatoes in a large cooler that truth be told, is better suited to cooling off beer that healing tomato grafts. I've found that the cooler is perfect as a healing chamber. Give the grafts a spray of water, close the lid, and not worry about temperature or humidity variations. After a few days, I start exposing the grafts to indoor light, slowly increasing it based on how the plants react. After a week, much to my surprise, I had 100 percent success. I moved the grafted tomatoes out of the cooler into the greenhouse, which is shaded and does not get direct sunlight this time of year. I kept an eye on them and if they wilted I brought them into the house out of the sun and heat. Three days later they are all doing well.
My problem now is that I've got ten grafted tomatoes that don't have a good place to be planted. My normal tomato areas have already been planted (in March) and now I have to wait for my onions and potatoes to come out before I can plant the grafted tomatoes. I could also plant one or two in a grow bag and leave them in the greenhouse. That might be a good experiment.
It is late, but probably not too late to plant the tomatoes. We'll see how they come out. I'll provide an update in a few months.
