I have not done it myself but I have done some looking into it, in the tomato growing forums and in the internet.

The bottom line would depend on the root stock used that some are almost resistant to most soil borne diseases. Some of the better ones, (specifically sold for this purpose ) are quite expensive. The cheapest way to experiment would be using BIG BEEF as root stock. You can buy a pack of seeds for a couple of bucks.

sey

I have not tried grafting tomatoes myself because I have a very productive seasons as it is. Buying them ready to plant grafted tomatoes are very expensive.

I was just reading yesterday the Florida Gardening magazine, September issue and they explain how to do it the very easy way.:) They recommend Better Boy as one of the candidates for a root stock and an heirloom to be grafted. Personally, I would not do it, more work for me and I still would have to spray for disease no matter what tomato it is.

Silvia

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3267505/grafted-shmafted?n=10

There are many previous discussions here about grafted and grafting that the forum search will pull up for you to read through if interested in lots of opinions.

"Can they still get diseases?"

Of course they can. Grafting was always directed at resistance to specific soil-borne diseases. Something the sellers of these expensive plants always conveniently leave out of the info. Since the majority of the most common tomato diseases are air borne bacteria and fungi spores, grafting has little to no benefits in preventing them.

Dave

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Yeah, I was just curious. Seems too good to be true, I just wonder how good it does here in Florida. They are expensive for transplants and even rootstock seeds run about 20-25 bucks a pack. I'm going to look into it more, since I actually have some better boy and heirloom seedlings at the moment, if I try something, I'll update this.

Aruzinsky - That plant definitely did not perform well for you.

As mentioned , grafting is done primarily to deal with some of the soil borne diseases (RKN , ...) . So it offers no protection for air borne foliage diseases ( blights, etc ). and therefor you have to spray with fungicide to try prevent foliage disease.

Also , with some root stocks it is claimed to have improved production. How this might happen is by a vigorous root system there will be a vigorous bigger plant. And bigger the plant might result in increased production.

Sey

Kevin, I think it depends on what the wilt disease is that's plaguing you. IIRC, it's some some sort of wilt + nematodes. If it's bacterial wilt as your extension agent suspects, then I'm not sure grafting will help, since there aren't that many varieties/rootstocks resistant to BW. However, there are nematode resistant varieties and rootstocks that might help, insofar as nematode damage often is what allows BW to kill early. So I think it's probably worth trying. Maybe growing a couple varieties for which you grow both a grafted plant and a non-grafted plant to see whether there is a difference. I wouldn't invest the extra money into all grafted plants yet before trying them out.

As for the foliage diseases, the grafting doesn't do anything for that, but those can be managed with fungicides and good cultivation practices. They're not usually as catastrophic as soilborne diseases.

This PDF from UT Extension has a list of rootstocks and varieties with various forms of resistance. I don't think it's anywhere near a complete list, but it might give you a starting point to think about it.

In your situation, I'd probably try to stick with resistant hybrids for the bulk of my planting, but for any heirlooms that I absolutely can't do without, I'd experiment with grafting and/or grow those in containers with fresh mix.

I graft heirlooms to Celebrity - it helps with rootknot nematodes. I haven't seen any other advantage.