Here are some good resources.

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~clrivard/Resources.html

Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Grafting Tomatoes

Are the results worth the effort?

For an experienced grower that has problems with disease due to the area they grow in...yes. For you...no.

Ever since folks saw the Territorial ads there have been long threads at every message site where I read/post.

Grafting is OK for the large scale commercial farmers who grow their plants in greenhouses but for the home gardener I don't think it makes much sense at all.

The most common tomato diseases are the two fungal and two bacterial foliage ones and the rootstock used for most grafting, whether it be Maxifort or Beaufort or another one, have no significant tolerances bred in for the foliage diseases.

The main reason grafting is done is for a bit of protection, or I should say a bit longer plant life, for soilborne diseases only.

And Dr. Francis of OSU has done lots of work in the area and feels that the variety Celebrity does just as good as a rootstock for the soilborne diseases it has tolerances for.

Carolyn

Grafting can also create some really neat plants. For example, you can graft a Cherokee Purple on to a root stock and then graft another heirloom, say German Johnson, on to that and end up with one tomato producing two types of tomatoes.

Grafted tomatoes only protect against soil born diseases. However, for some people who have these, they are the only way they will be able to produce a crop.

jr, I do think there are other ways of producing crops where some of the most common soilborne diseases are found.

Take CA for example, where Southern Root Knot Nematodes can be a real problem in certain areas. There are ways of decreasing the RKN populations that really do work and one of the best is to add lots organic material to the soil in question. That's b'c the RKN's go from sand grain to sand grain via the water shell around each grain and that's how destructive populations buid up.

If the grains are farther apart due to addition or organic material they can't migrate.

I agree that Fusarium can be more of a problem, especially where races 2 and 3 are found.

And what would be the difference in RKN or F or V genes that have been bred into the common varieties such as the Celebrity that I mentioned above, and many of the newer BHN ones except that the latter don't taste very good but also could be used as root stock.

THe folks in Australia and NZ who post where I do have long had grafted plants available to them and they say that they don't make that much difference and that the cost is so very much higher.

Besides, what many do say is that having tolerance genes in either rootstock or in conventional plants only allows for a week or two more plant life. But for commercial farmers that helps since they determine when to harvest by BRIX ( Soluble Sugars) tests and that little bit of extra time can help.

Carolyn, who is glad that she lives and gardens in the tundra where soilborne diseases are not common but has many tomato friends all over the US and elsewhere and sure does sympathize with those friends and anyone else who has to deal with them.