An experiment using two plants in one space

[JRinPA]

nice. ursa major frustratio.
I can see how that much root would act like a french drain right to the plant.

[Toomanymatoes]

with 2 plants close together you can also experiment with grafting 2 entire plants together.
I never had luck with grafting,so I just stick with cloning.

I am intrigued by grafting and plan to play around next season. I like the idea of the "Fraken"-plant.

James Prigioni just posted a video of his grafted tomato plant. Looks pretty interesting!

[slugworth]

I have ace 55 growing in a clump.
Talking like a packet of seeds in a 1 spot.
Some of the plants have green tomatoes others have none,which may be a good thing for determinate type.
This may stagger the output of tomatoes over the rest of the season.
They are doing relatively well for heatwave/drought gardening woes at this point.
The plants basically mulch themselves keeping the ground cooler.
Individual plants nearby have croaked already.

[strawbaleking]

I side grafted (this is the easiest) 2 Big Beef plants. I later (about 2 weeks) cut one of the tops so there was 1 top but 2 root masses. Of course the grafting pushed back the fruiting due to healing time but that plant was extremely productive and very large compared to the other Big Beefs near it. I have tried 2 separate plants in one space and it really just in the end seemed to check growth and productivity on both plus dealing with pruning for air.

[JRinPA]

Side grafting of the same variety, cool experiment. Glad to have you here strawbaleking.

I'm trying to picture this. The graft was before planting or after?

[strawbaleking]

Before. Using standard nursery height transplants, placed both in larger pot to fit. Then grafted to each other for 2 weeks. Then removing 1 top. I had been trying the other methods for grafting it was too sensitive and alot of work. Side required no humidity chamber or exact matching small fiddly sizes. Just have to worry with graft heal time setting it back so start early. After the healing you can plant after hardening and good support. I had to graft because of fusarium problems. Then I went to pots. No more problems. But I still did some grafting because the vigor was much better in some varieties.

[Mark_Thompson]

@strawbaleking Is this how you side graft, or something different? Cool idea you had going two bottoms and a top.

17B7450E-3023-4170-9CA8-74D407AB5012.jpeg

[Whwoz]

@Mark_Thompson that technique was used a lot here Down Under when grafting was first done, once the two plants had healed the join, the top of one was cut off leaving 2 roots to supply the one top, leading to better than normal growth and crops. However the extra cost lead to the process dying out.

[strawbaleking]

yup that's it. It's critical you use super sharp blades.
I think Johnny's has a video and guide.

[Mark_Thompson]

After they heal, do you think it would be possible to do it again and have three roots feeding one plant?