Solanum torvum apparently is a great rootstock and almost all Nightshades can be grafted to it, including Eggplants, Peppers, and even tomatoes.
I found a man on YouTube who is grafting all sorts of varieties of Nightshades onto his
. His YouTube name is Buang88.
LINK TO HIS YOUTUBE → BUANG88 - YouTub
(I think his account might have been deactivated or he may have changed his YouTube name. If you know any details, please leave a comment below.)
I also came across this Publication on Research Gate from the Journal of Horticulture about Tomato Grafting onto Solanum torvum:
The study showed that seed-derived Solanum torvum is a compatible rootstock with the two tomato scion cultivars they tested, which was "Celebrity" and "CLN 3212A". The article went on to say that Vegetative Solanum torvum rootstock showed only moderate compatibility as an interspecific grafting rootstock, as it had significantly reduced grafting success rate when compared to self-grafted Solanum torvum rootstocks and the control rootstock of seed-derived Maxifort.
The tomato rootstock variety Maxifort was chosen as the rootstock to be compared against Solanum torvum in this study. Maxifort is a commonly used commercial standard rootstock for tomato grafting, hence why it was chosen to be utilized as a positive control in this experiment.
Comparisons between Maxifort and seed-derived Solanum torvum rootstock showed no significant difference for survival percentage on either scion.
All of the grafted plants were done using the cleft grafting method and needed similar number of days for successful graft fusion.
It was also noted in the Publication that there is an established history of Solanum torvum for use as an intraspecific grafting rootstock in Solanum melongena (Eggplant) cultivation for its resistance to a wide range of soil borne pathogens, including: Verticillium dahlia, Ralstonia solanacearum, Fusarium oxysporum and Meloidogyne spp. root-knot nematodes.
It's also worth noting that Solanum torvum is a species native to the western tropics and
India and as such, it tolerates the climatic pressures of tropical regions, which makes Solanum torvum an ideal candidate for interspecific grafting in equatorial regions, where environmental conditions can make production otherwise difficult.
Because of the high compatibility they observed during this study, the researchers recommend that the effectiveness of seed-derived Solanum torvum rootstock in providing flood- and drought-tolerances to tomato scions be explored further.
Now this is research that I am particularly interested in partaking in myself.
As of now, I have one seed derived Solanum torvum plant which I acquired in Las Vegas from a man named Mike who I found on Craigslist. I have inquired about purchasing more Solanum torvum plants for use in grafting experiments.
I am also in the process of trying to grow my own seed-derived Nighshades including Eggplants, Peppers, and Tomatoes.
I would like to experiment growing different nightshade varieties on Solanum torvum, not only as a rootstock, but as a tree with different branches containing different Nightshade varieties, like a "Fruit Cocktail" Tree.
One of the motivating factors for me to want to accomplish this was because I came across a blog who mentioned that they had a long-lived Solanum torvum that had been cultivated basically into a perennial tree.
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