"DIY TomTato - Grafting Tomatoes onto Potatoes 2014"

They look pretty good to me Loli, well done so far.

Is that sellotape around the graft union?

 

Good idea about the cling film Loli, I will copy that.

 

Finally did my potato/tomato grafts yesterday:

Using Maris peer spuds and a variety of tomato scions I had spare: Manx Marvel, Floridity, G. Delight, Sungella, Sungold, Golden Sun, Black Cherry & Black Krim.

I used upturned pots to force the chits so there is a longer stem to make the graft:


Tomato scion on the right, it still has it's roots to help it survive until the graft has taken. Should take around 8 days, then I'll sever the tomato scion from it's root.


Sorry a bit out of focus, there are 2 or 3 grafts per tuber - probably a few will fail.


Ready to go into poly boxes:


They stay inside the boxes in low light for a few days to keep humidity levels up, this prevents the scions from wilting.




I didn't use cling film as all the stems were big enough to be gripped by the clips OK.

 

Ah, I should have put that post on the grafting thread - oops.

 

It's a learning process, mine are in our house in a cool unheated room, but still reaching 22 deg C in the current heatwave (but not as bad as 33 in the greenhouse).

I'm amazed how quick the potato tubers send up new sprouts, they seem to appear overnight and are a good 4 or 5 inches long and quite thick.

 

The last 2 or 3 days have been critical for mine, should have been constantly monitoring and gradually cutting down the misting and increasing light levels. Too much humidity and they start to damp off; not enough humidity or too much light and they wilt; not enough light and they stop growing. Unfortunately I planned it all wrong as we have been away for a long weekend taking in Shiney's Open day. So the potato/tomato crosses just took their chance. I've left some on a cool north facing windowsill and some in a growbox with the lights off.

Luckily most have survived non the worse and I might well have six pomatoes to plant up soon. Each potato is in one pot with two or three tomatoes grafted on top, this is the most promising pot:



So I took off the grafting clips and removed all the new potato chits:



The grafts have healed well:



So a few days under the growlights until the tomato scions start to flower then get half planted in the greenhouse and the others outdoors.

 

Well done Loli, I'd be happy just to get one. We got the timing a bit wrong for this critical stage didn't we Next year I'll start even earlier and make sure the weekend when they need to come out of the humidity boxes is not Shiney's Open day