Participants will learn how to graft heirloom tomatoes to hybrid rootstock
Writer: Robert Burns, 903-834-6191, rd-burns@tamu.edu
OVERTON – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Kilgore College will host a strawberry field day and a tomato grafting workshop March 21 at the Kilgore College Demonstration Farm, 2211 Texas Highway 135, about 2 miles northeast of Overton .
Registration starts at 8:30 a.m., and the strawberry tour will begin at 9 a.m., according to Dr. Karl Steddom, Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant pathologist, Overton, and lead agriculture instructor, Kilgore College, Kilgore.
The tour is free to attend, but the workshop starts at 11 a.m. and costs $25 per person. Seating for the workshop is limited to 50 participants. For more information or to reserve a seat, contact the AgriLife Extension office in Rusk County at 903-657-0376.
On the tour, participants will see the results of statewide trials on commercial strawberry production methods, Steddom said.
Following the strawberry tour, Steddom will conduct the workshop where participants will learn how to and why to graft heirloom tomatoes to modern hybrid rootstock, he said.
“Heirloom varieties are old varieties from which you can save the seed and have them produce the same variety,” he said “Many modern varieties are hybrids, meaning that they were specifically bred with two genetically different parents. If you save seed from a hybrid, the offspring will have very different traits from their parents.”
Many home gardeners prefer the fruit from heirloom varieties because they have better flavor and unusual shapes and colors, Steddom said.
“Unfortunately, they don’t have all of the improved traits of modern varieties such as vigor and disease resistance,” he said. “Grafting allows you to use a vigorous rootstock on the bottom of the plant with a weaker variety, such as an heirloom variety, on top. It is a way of getting the benefits of both.”
The workshop will last about 90 minutes or until all participants are finished with the hands-on training, Steddom said.
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