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I saw in the Burpee catalog grafted heirloom veggies, like tomatoes. I thought, well, maybe it's some fancy thing Burpee is trying out. I felt a little creepy about it, but thought, c'est la vie.
Then today I was shopping at a Grocery Outlet here in Redding, CA, and they had a bunch of heirloom tomato plants for sale that were grafted heirloom tomatoes onto hybrid root stock.
The selling point is supposed to be that the heirloom roots are susceptible to insects or other problems. My thinking is, how on earth did it become an heirloom plant, if it was susceptible to dying without a different root stock? I just don't see the logic in this. If the heirloom plant has been around since the 1800's, why on earth would it need a hyrbrid root grafted onto it?
What do you all think? Creepy and scary? Or some great advancement in science?
What do you all think? Creepy and scary? Or some great advancement in science?
I haven't seen these new tomato plants. However, grafting itself isn't new science. Plants will sometimes graft themselves naturally. Gardeners have been grafting for thousands of years.
I think it COULD be creepy or scary, but that's something that's been done for a very, very long time...grafting a desirable plant or shrub onto a hardier rootstock. In fact, a great many of the "trees" you see in bloom right now...are grafted onto a compatible, more hardy rootstock. Roses also come to mind. :-)
In the tomato world, they've discovered that grafting heirloom toms on a hardier rootstock, allows those tomatoes to produce over a longer period of time, in a wider range of soil conditions. The thing of it is...if the tom is an heirloom variety...and you save seed, you're still going to have the same, original rootstock on your next generation of plants, not the "hardier" rootstock. They have not been genetically modified.....they have been physically modified. :-)
I'm not a fan of grafting in general. In the short term it is supposed to produce better plants, but I've seen the result of grafting gone wrong all over my yard. It turns out that the "top" plant tends to die over time, and the bottom (strong and evil) plant takes over.
Grafted roses have left:
multiflora rose - Bad, invasive and unattractive (but smells nice)
Dr Huey Rose - this is actually a decent rose, but it is thorny and gets HUGE. Disease, shade, moisture...nothing kills Dr Huey.
The top roses of these must have died ages ago. These were common rootstocks for a lot of wimpy hybrid roses.
Grafted berries have left:
Wineberries - This is an invasive asian bramble. It is everywhere and a may be a pita to get rid of because it is covered in fine thorns. The upside is that it tastes great and native animals don't touch it. After investigation, I found out that it used to be rootstock for some commercial berries.
Grafted trees have left:
Crabapples - this is my guess. I do love the crabapples but are they native? Do they have disease issues, are they taking over habitat and making life difficult for native plants?
The issue I have with grafting is that in order to get "vigor and disease resistance" the growers seem to use some sort of superhuman frankenplant as the bottom plant. This is great when the graft lives, but if the top plant dies, the bottom takes over and can be bad for the ecology. And then if you don't like it Ha ha ha...good luck killing it.
This may not be an issue for grafted plants in the North, but in the south...what if it gets out and starts producing seeds? And then turns out to be some sort of monster like wineberries and multiflora rose? Before buying these I'd find out what the heck it is they're grafted on.
I'm a little off track on your post, but I'm glad for the opportunity to rant about grafting.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Why would this be creepy of scary? Almost every Japanese Maple or flowering cherry tree that you buy in a nursery has been grafted onto a more disease resistant root stock. On a weeping flowering cherry every branch is grafted onto a trunk that has been grafted onto a different root stock, so in fact parts of 3 trees. Whenever you see an espalier style tree or shrub it has likely been grafted. All English walnut trees sold are grafted onto wild walnut stock. All of my fruit trees are grafted, for example an apple with 3 varieties, another with 4 varieties plus pears on one tree. Grafted tomatoes are a lot more expensive but do a lot better than the typical heirloom tomatoes.
It's true that a lot of trees have been grafted onto stronger root stock. Same with wine grapes, I realized when reading your posts.
I guess I've also had experiences like kinkytoes where the evil graft took over - your post cracked me up! Made me think of Little Shop of Horrors with the "cute" man-eating plant lol!
I intend to start saving my seeds, especially the heirloom seeds. I bought heirloom seeds for my outside tomatoes on the patio, and a hybrid cherry I'm growing indoors. I plan to save all the seeds.
Beachmel, are you sure the root stock wouldn't affect the seeds? I wouldn't want to keep the seeds from the grafted heirloom plants. I'd wonder what kind of weird genetic things were happening to those seeds.
I must admit, I think the grafted fruit and citrus trees that give you more than one variety on one tree/shrub are really cool! I've always wanted one, but never did. So cool to get 3 different types of apples off the same tree in a small space.
I guess I keep wondering if the grafted tomato plants' seeds will create some bizarre mutant plants.
The grafted tomato plants I saw at the Grocery Outlet were really tall and skinny with lots of blooms - they were already about 3 feet tall. I was shopping with a friend who wasn't a gardener and she said they looked weird. I said the first thing I'd do is chop them in half so they'd bush out. Don't know if their appearance had anything to do with the root stock. But, they just even looked like mutants to me
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Saving seeds from a hybrid will not result in the same variety that it came from, what you will get is unpredictable. Might be fun to see, however. Saving seeds from grafted tomatoes will be just like saving them from an ungrafted
heirloom. Here is some interesting data from one company's comparison of grafted vs ungrafted.
I saw in the Burpee catalog grafted heirloom veggies, like tomatoes. I thought, well, maybe it's some fancy thing Burpee is trying out. I felt a little creepy about it, but thought, c'est la vie.
Then today I was shopping at a Grocery Outlet here in Redding, CA, and they had a bunch of heirloom tomato plants for sale that were grafted heirloom tomatoes onto hybrid root stock.
The selling point is supposed to be that the heirloom roots are susceptible to insects or other problems. My thinking is, how on earth did it become an heirloom plant, if it was susceptible to dying without a different root stock? I just don't see the logic in this. If the heirloom plant has been around since the 1800's, why on earth would it need a hyrbrid root grafted onto it?
What do you all think? Creepy and scary? Or some great advancement in science?
Seems like a waste of money on an annual. Way less costly to plant a bunch of seeds with the odds some will survive to maturity and fruit.
I always plant heirlooms simply because I'm pld enough to remember them from my younger years. For the Heirloom tomatoes you can get from 100 to several hundred seeds for about $2 and if you can't get 3 or 4 of them to survive, you are a rare person.
Saving seeds from a hybrid will not result in the same variety that it came from, what you will get is unpredictable. Might be fun to see, however. Saving seeds from grafted tomatoes will be just like saving them from an ungrafted
heirloom. Here is some interesting data from one company's comparison of grafted vs ungrafted.
Wow, some of them were significantly more productive. I'm sure you're right about the seeds, but I'm still paranoid about the genes being messed with .
Good point about the hybrid seeds. The whole point was to have some small plants in the house. I only got 10 seeds for $5.00 from Burpee! 9 sprouted, one was a hopeless weird little mutant that I threw away (and I don't like to give up on seedlings), 2 were really slow growing wimps that I gave away to other seniors with garden spots - told them grow these at your own risk, they're runts lol! Of the 6 I have inside, 2 of those are slower growing, too. So, I really only got 4 really hardy plants out of 9 that sprouted - and these little guys weren't cheap. Am curious to see how they produce.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodrow LI
Seems like a waste of money on an annual. Way less costly to plant a bunch of seeds with the odds some will survive to maturity and fruit.
I always plant heirlooms simply because I'm pld enough to remember them from my younger years. For the Heirloom tomatoes you can get from 100 to several hundred seeds for about $2 and if you can't get 3 or 4 of them to survive, you are a rare person.
The current batch of seeds I bought.
Every packet had at least a hundred seeds. Price was affordable and I figure if just 1 plant of each variety fruits, I have come out a head.
Wow! Great deal on seeds. Where did you buy them?
I also planted lemon cucumbers on my patio. I have 2 containers on our patio - one is big enough for putting 3 lemon cuke plants (I'm pretending it's a hill). My cement container has 3 heirloom tomatoes in it.
I took a photo of my heirloom tomatoes. I've seen some white flies, so I put down some reflective mulch (I just used foil) as it's supposed to disorient the white flies so they have a hard time finding the plant or some such (actually read this on a university extension site, so I'm honestly not trying to call aliens to the Planet Earth lol!), and I made some yellow sticky traps from yellow plastic and put vaseline on them to catch the flying white flies. So, that's why they look funny:
One is Green Envy (stays green and shaped kind of like a lemon), Big Rainbow (yellow, orange striped), and Cherokee Purple.
These are in a pretty shady area on the patio, so they'll grow slowly. But, the regular gardeners on our patio here have told me it gets so hot in the summer, that they have to shade their tomatoes with umbrellas! So, my spot may work out well.
I've buried them deep - I keep trimming the bottom leaves and adding more soil to get a bigger root system, which is also why they look so wimpy.
I guess I'm just a bit of a romantic when it comes to heirloom plants. I'd rather take them as-is, even if they don't produce as well.
Here are my indoor patio hybrid cherries: Lizzano. The bins on the table are my new worm composting bins I'm setting up. They will live under my bathroom sink in the cupboard.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We have some great nurseries around here and this year I'm trying a heirloom cherry tomato called "Dancing with the Smurfs". They are only about 16" tall but starting to show flower buds.
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