I haven't tried tomatoes with potatoes, but tomatoes with tomatoes is difficult enough. We had a class in tomato grafting last year and none of the hundred or so we grafted survived. So far as I can see, it's a tricky proposition with many ways for it to fail.
Sandy

We did it for fun in one of my propagation semesters when learning many grafting and budding techniques. Very successful was a method called approach grafting where two young plants are grown in the same container, then joined along their young stems while still attached to their own roots. After the union becomes successful, the top of the potato plant and the bottom of the tomato are removed. The remaining plant will produce potatoes below the soil and tomatoes above.

Approach grafting with two different tomatoes is a very common practice, I think. I've done it many times with good results.

Yup, approach grafting is your best bet, as it keeps the full of each plant alive and independent until the graft has taken hold, then you can chop the excess off without worry.

There is always the good old Tomato-Potato Plant (aka The Pomato) that has been around for many decades and sold by the Michigan Bulb Company, Gardeners Choice, among others. ;)

Dave

Yeah, but thats just buying a grafted plant when you can make your own.

And when making your own you get to pick your favorite types of tomato and potato.

I'm actually going to try making a couple of these this year using my P20 blue tomatoes and my adirondak blue potatoes.

My biggest question is going to be how productive the plant will be considering its going to be putting a lot of energy into stores both above and below ground at the same time, but it'll be worth a try.

This post was edited by Edymnion on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 12:43

Very interesting! I had never heard of approach grafting! I don't want to do a potato tomato combo. However I might try different rootstock for my Brandywines.

It is among my top tomatoes for flavor, but very low on production and disease resistance.

Maybe a big boy Brandywine graft?

Wertach, that's the exact reason why people mess with the tomato/tomato grafting! Select a rootstock for its characteristics of disease or pest resistance and the fruiting variety for flavor!

May I ask why do you want to do that thing? I graft trees not vegetable. I grafted Citrus trees, Apple trees and my last graft was a fig tree. Even with trees, it is so difficult and the success rate ooh. If I get 50% success, I am naked dancing in the street and I am arrested for indecent exposure. I never want to be arrested for grafting tomatoes.
Abe

Because unlike trees tomatoes and potatoes are soft bodied plants that grow quickly. You can approach graft them early on and unless you just screw it up miserably it cannot fail.

And you'd graft for the same reason you do trees, better rootstock than what you would otherwise get. In the pomato case your better rootstock is also edible.

I am glad that the OP started this thread! I probably would have never heard of approach grafting!

I'm kinda excited and making crazy plans! I have plenty of space and always have extra plants. I can experiment with this!

I tried the straw grafting last year without success. This sounds so good and workable!

Thanks!!!!!

Yup, and you can use approach grafting for more than just attaching to rootstock.

Start up a pepper that you know is a good grower, wait for it to get fairly large, then start up different kinds of peppers in narrow plugs. You can then use approach grafting to put the seedling onto the established plant as a new branch. You could have one pepper plant that grows multiple different kinds of pods.

Now you have me doing more thinking Edy. I don't get good production out of my bell peppers. But sweet banana peppers do great here, do you think that would improve the production on the bells?

It would be the equivalent of creating a Rolls Canhardly.

It rolls down one hill and can hardly make it up the next.

I have seen the results of these on-line and in books and you get a few small potatoes and reduced tomato production.

As a child, I had a mut whose breed was Canhardly. When asked about its breed, my dad would say "he's a Canhardly. We can hardly tell what he is." ;)