Top Seeds is extending its catalogue with Carbonite,a high-strength tomato rootstock also aimed at summer short cycles with very extreme temperatures.
On the open-air crop farms in Malaga, with large-sized loose tomatoes, it has shown “exceptional” behaviour. The farmer Luis Miguel Ruiz was used to planting ungrafted, loose tomatoes, and at the end of the crop, they suffered from a lack of size and loss of plants due to fungus. This year he grafted a large part of the crop with Carbonite and he compared the benefits as opposed to the area of ungrafted plants: “The experience has been remarkable. The rootstock offers a very dense root system, which helps the plant to be stronger, giving homogeneous, good-sized fruit. During the harvest, we have observed this larger size and homogeneity compared to the traditional handling. In the future we will continue grafting on Carbonite”.
Contrary to normal performance with other rootstocks, which delay the first harvest, in the area grafted with Carbonite, the fruit ripened at the same time as fruit in the ungrafted area. And with a peculiarity: each tomato plant had two ‘arms’ or stems, reaching a greater weight of fruit, while on the ungrafted plants there was only one stem.
Manuel Cara, Sales Manager atTop Seeds inGranada and Malaga, emphasises that Carbonite was stronger and had greater robustnessfor growth with the two stems than the ungrafted control area. Additionally, the size was greater throughout the entire cycle, even in the highest part, an important aspect. Luis Miguel, a farmer belonging to Agroaxarquía was “very happy” with the results at the auction sales.
Another producer,Jesús Maldonado, from the Costa de Granada, indicates: “Carbonitetolerates high temperatures very well; it offers a more significant bearing of the plant and it has many secondary roots with a large amount of absorbent hairs. Up to now, I have been able to observe that, for early transplants and high temperatures, it is the best rootstock on the market. If everything continues along the same line, the next campaign I will opt for Carbonite, without any doubt.”
In the Alpujarra region and in Zujar, both in Granada, an area with an important presence of summer tomato crops, they are also opting for this rootstock. “People are very happy, as we are seeing what we expected: an increase in size, particularly at the end of the cycle and with a high tolerance to nematodes and fusarium,” Manuel Cara concludes.
