- What if I told you
that one of the best ways to grow a tomato
is to grow two tomatoes
and use the top of one with the bottom of the other?
That's what we're doing in today's video, my friend's.
Grafting tomatoes.
Something that is super exciting for me as a gardener.
It's something I've done in the orchard.
It's very common in the orchard, but it is less common
in the vegetable garden, unless you are a farmer.
So I figured why not bring it to us here at home?
It's starting to get a little bit more popular.
So let's first discuss what is grafting.
Put very simply it is when you are taking
plant material from one plant, usually a related plant,
it can't really do it if it's not,
and putting it onto another plant.
Where you see this in the wild, so to speak,
is in the Home Orchard where you can grow
these fruit salad trees with multiple different types
of stone fruit,
where you can graft different citrus.
Or like I've done in my orchard,
grafting different types of figs onto the same fig tree.
But you can do it with tomatoes.
The question is why?
What I have in front of me here is the Fortamino tomato.
Now, believe it or not, I don't care about anything
you see coming out of the soil here.
With the Fortamino tomato
I care about the rootstock.
So basically everything below the soil,
and a little bit of this stem.
Why?
It's because the Fortamino tomato
is really designed to have another tomato put on top of it.
What it's gonna offer, that lucky tomato that goes on top,
is more leaf cover to prevent sun scald,
prevention against things like fusarium wilt,
even more tomatoes per truss.
So you're gonna get more yield out of the same tomato.
So in this video both Jacques and myself are gonna show you
how we graft our tomatoes from simple
to a little bit more complicated,
and then exactly what to do afterwards
so this little guy right here
doesn't die the second you graft it.
So let's get started with the grafting process.
What you're going to need are a grafting rootstock tomato.
We have the Fortamino tomato
from Botanical Interests, our seed company.
But you also need the tomato you want to graft.
This is the one that you actually want to grow
and you want to eat.
In my case here I have Cherokee Carbon.
Kind of funny, that's already a hybridized heirloom tomato.
Cherokee Purple is the classic heirloom.
It's been crossed with carbon to provide a more vigorous,
a more resilient plant.
But I figured why not get even crazier
and graft it onto something.
So we're sort of looking at this mix of two plants,
then graft it onto a third tomato plants.
We're getting a little crazy here.
Now, gear wise, you can get away with something
as simple as just one of these razors.
Now I'm gonna show you a piece of gear that I'm gonna use
for the first example, because it's very precise.
So this is an actual tomato grafting tool set.
We'll put a link on where to get these
in the description.
You've got these little stakes,
and then you've got this clip.
This clip is what's going to actually make sure
that those grafts are held together at the graft point.
That's really all you need.
Again, you could get away
with a little bit of grafting tape and just a razor.
So, how do you actually do this?
There are two primary styles of grafting.
I'm gonna show you the first one,
Jacques gonna show you the second one.
The first one is a top graft.
And what you're doing is you're cutting the top off
of the one you want to grow at a very specific angle,
which you'll see, and grafting it at the same angle.
This right here is the one I want to graft.
And I also have the Fortamino rootstock.
I want to graft two.
It doesn't really matter which one I cut first.
What does matter though
is that the stem diameter is pretty much the exact same,
as well as the cut angle is the exact same.
That's where this particular tool is kind of nice
because you've got this razor here
to make a nice clean cut,
but you also have this little channel here
that keeps the stem at a consistent angle.
So I'm cutting at about a 60 degree angle both times.
Again, you could eyeball this too.
I'm just gonna show you the tool
'cause honestly I love these tools.
It's really handy to use.
So what I want to do is decide
am I gonna go below the seed leaves here,
or am I gonna go above?
In my case right here I want to go below
because I need to match the stem width.
And in this case it's a little thicker down here.
I'm gonna match it to about right there.
Step one, we're gonna come in with our tool.
We're gonna match the tomato stem
into this little cutting channel here.
I'm gonna go low because I want that width on the stem.
And then the painful part, quick clip.
So I have this beautiful, clean angle right here,
exactly what I want.
No blemishes, perfectly clean.
We're gonna bring forward our rootstock tomato.
What I'm gonna do here is try to match,
it's roughly about there or so,
and I'll describe a problem that you're gonna run into
here in a second.
But I'm gonna go for the cut.
There we go.
Now in this case I didn't perfectly match these,
but I think I'm still gonna be okay.
So what I want to do now is I'm gonna grab this little clip,
this little attachment clip, and I'm gonna slide in the top
into this clip right here.
And then what I want to do is come on this side
and perfectly match this to that cut.
So there you go.
You can tell by the color difference
that I've made that graft.
And then the nice thing about these particular clips
is you've got this little popsicle stick
I can throw down here to adhere it
and make it go straight up like that.
Something interesting about this particular graft,
I could have even improved on this further,
is you'll notice I actually have two sets of seed leaves,
which means that in this section right here
I have the potential for the rootstock tomato
to throw out suckers, right?
So you're gonna need to watch that graft point.
Below the graft point
you wanna remove 100% of the suckers,
otherwise you're gonna get tomatoes
off of the Fortamino rootstock.
So anything below here, remove.
Right here and above, I'm gonna be fine.
But I still, for tomato pruning reasons,
may want to remove those suckers.
So I'm gonna do one more.
If you want to do a graft
that avoids the problem I just mentioned,
it's actually really easy and solved
by just knowing a little bit of the plant's anatomy.
So I'm gonna come in right here
and come below those seed leaves, as you can see.
Same angle.
So now I have the seed leaves of this plant,
which is very similar to what I did before.
The only difference here is on this particular rootstock
I'm gonna go also below the seed leaves.
So I avoid that problem altogether.
So I want to come in just like that.
So I'm using almost none of the top growth here.
I'm gonna use the same technique right here.
I'm slotting this in just like that,
and I'm meeting it just like that.
So it's low, but trust me,
it is slotted in absolutely perfectly.
Those angles matched up very well,
even better than my last graft.
And then you want to just come in again
and throw down your stake to keep these nice and steady.
So there I go.
And I don't have to worry now about anything
from the rootstock sprouting up
because I only have seed leaves from my top grafted tomato.
What if you have tomatoes
that are a little bit older like this?
Well, you can still graft them,
and you may want to use a different technique.
So these actually aren't my tomatoes,
these are Jacques tomatoes, and he's gonna show you
how to do what's called a cleft graft
using more basic tools like a standard razor,
and some stuff that you can find at home.
- As Kevin mentioned, once you get bigger tomatoes
you're gonna want to try a different graft,
like the cleft graft.
Now this is an interesting one
because you're basically just going to jam the scion
into the rootstock.
So let's take a look at the Fortamino rootstock first.
These are mine right now.
They're quite big,
and honestly everything should have been planted
probably a week ago.
So let's see if we could still make this work.
I'm not entirely sure if it's gonna work at this size,
but I'm definitely willing to try.
So in this case we're going to be using just the razor blade
and nothing else really.
So to start it off
I guess I'll just kind of choose one of these.
Might as well be this guy up here.
I want this nice straight portion here,
so I'm gonna come right here and just literally
take a straight cut across.
There we go.
So that's going to be where we're actually grafting onto.
Now the way that the cleft works
is that what I'm going to do now is take my knife
and go straight down the middle,
little less than 1/2 inch there.
So now I have created a sort of wedge point
where I could put my scion into it.
So I'm gonna go with this one here,
which is the Omar's Lebanese.
This is a tomato that I really quite enjoy eating.
It is a classic heirloom, so it doesn't produce very much.
And so this year I'm hoping I'll get more out of it
by grafting it.
Now I do wanna find a section of the stem
that is about the same thickness.
Now the nice thing about this graft is that
let's say I'm trying to match this height.
I don't have to come to the base of the tomato plant,
I could just work my way up until I get a similar diameter.
So in this case, on this tomato,
I'm gonna just decapitate it right here.
And now the cool thing is I could still
keep the original scion, and this will actually still grow
and just produce a liter off of this notch right here.
And that's gonna be another tomato for me.
So I'm not actually losing anything with this graft.
So then the next thing I'm gonna do
is take off some of these leaves like that,
just because any extra leaf that I leave on there
is an extra leaf that the plant has to support.
Now this is where it gets a little bit weird.
This is where we're going to carve this tomato
into basically a flathead screwdriver shape.
So what I'm going to do is take my blade
and try to just take a slice off like so.
Come on the other side.
And now I think that's too sharp,
so I wanna make that a little bit of a longer sort of point.
So there we go.
So now I have this sort of
screwdriver bit looking section here.
So now I'm going to take the scion,
try to ease it right into that notch, just like that.
So that actually looks pretty convincing to me.
And I don't know if these clips are gonna be the right size,
but I'm gonna go ahead and try anyway.
And actually that does do something.
So that's an option right there
is you can use that clip to sort of keep it together.
But I wanna also try doing it with something
like a piece of clear grafting tape,
or this is like something that you would use
to tie your plants.
So let's try doing one more,
and we'll see if we could do a cleaner matchup here.
And now the next tomato I'm gonna graft here
is the Delicious Hunt.
This is the tomato that I actually got
a three-pound tomato off of.
So why not try to actually make it even better
by putting it on a nice rootstock.
Give it a chop.
Come back down, take these leaves off.
And this time I'm gonna lay it down here
so I could try to get this cut a little bit more carefully.
There we go.
Got a decent cut there, and slide it right in.
Alright.
Now I'm gonna grab my tape.
It's not gonna look pretty, but the idea is
that I just want it to keep the moisture in.
And so even if it's loose,
it's still going to be keeping that moisture in
and keeping that graft contact tight.
Alright, so there's two cleft graphs.
We'll see if it works.
I don't know if it works at the size tomato,
but now we need to talk about how to actually
heal these graphs once you've completed them.
- Now that you know how to graft
in a variety of different ways,
it's really important to know what to do after you graft.
In fact, I would almost say it's more important
because at this point is really the point
most of us are going to kill our grafts.
Ask me how I know.
I've done it a million times,
specifically in my orchards.
So at this point we're gonna need
some kind of humidity dome.
Because we're using our Epic 4-Cells,
we're just gonna use our 4-Cell domes.
I'm gonna have a humidity little sprayer here.
I'm gonna blast the inside.
I'm gonna blast the plants themselves.
You need to keep humidity at this point above 90%,
nearly at 100.
And so I'm just gonna kind of tease my plants in here.
Be very sensitive.
You can see they're already wanting to wilt.
This is why this is so important
because they're effectively completely severed
from their root system until such point
that they actually do take that graft.
And then nutrients can actually transport
through the fused grafting point, as well as water.
And so that's why the humidity is so important.
It's much like taking a cutting.
And in that same vein at the graft point,
you might even start to see what are called
adventitious roots come out.
That is what happens specifically,
even with something like tomatoes,
you'll start to see roots come out.
It's why they're so easy to propagate.
So the next thing you need is darkness.
In my case what I'm gonna do
is throw this on the bottom of my greenhouse,
cover it with something like shade cloth.
I want it in the greenhouse 'cause I want
70 to 85 degrees fahrenheit with that 90% humidity.
Now as it starts to set
and that graph starts to fuse together,
you can actually take the tip off here a little bit,
let a little bit of that humidity out.
Maybe remove the shade cloth,
but keep it in filtered sun or shade.
And then eventually,
maybe at the five to seven to eight, nine day mark,
you can remove this,
take a look at how they're doing.
If they're wilting, increase the humidity.
If they're stretching, increase the light.
And there you go.
At that point it's gonna be time to plant.
A few weeks ago we did our first graft
here at Epic Gardening, and I'm happy to say
that it took like a charm.
You can see it right here.
This is the rootstock, this is the top.
And you can even see some roots forming here,
which is a good sign that the graft has taken,
as well as the fact that it is just very fused.
I could sort of pull up on the top here
and it is not removing itself from the rootstock,
but it's at this point, my friends,
where you can really mess up.
You've spent all the time to graft this tomato,
the TLC to make sure that this is done right.
And if you plant it like you often see
tomatoes recommended to be planted,
which is burying it really deep,
you can just completely negate all the work that you did.
Why?
Well, what do you want to grow?
The rootstock.
If you planted it up to here, then you're actually
going to be growing adventitious roots out of the top,
which is what you don't want.
And so when you're taking this out into the ground,
just plant it right here.
Don't bury it, don't sink it down,
don't clip leaves off.
Just plant it exactly as it is.
And if it's a little tall, just use a support to hold it up.
Tomato grafting is super fun.
It's a little more complex.
You'll see over the course of our growing season here
how ours have done.
And if you're curious what to do after this point,
there's a lot of tomato care that's yet to come,
especially pruning.
So check out our Pruning Guide.
It is the ultimate tomato pruning guide right here.
Shop our seeds.
The Fortamino rootstock, for example,
is available at botanicalinterests.com.
Good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.