Seeded, hybrid or grafted tomatoes?

Anyone who has eaten home-grown tomatoes will agree: the flavour is so much more intense than tomatoes from the supermarket. Not surprisingly, this vegetable is one of the most popular among vegetable gardeners. The supply is also gigantic, and we can divide the juicy round fruits into 3 large groups: hybrid, seedling or grafted. But what exactly is the difference between these varieties? You can read it here!

1. Seedling varieties

Thousands of years of natural selection all over the world have ensured that a huge range of seedfast varieties is available on the market today. Do you choose for seedfast varieties? Then you have an enormous choice of biodiversity, and this at a relatively low price. In addition, you can easily obtain seed from these varieties to use yourself the following year. Some well-known seedfast tomato varieties are Marmande, Coeur de Boeuf, Noir de Crimee and Tiny Tim.

2. Hybrid tomatoes

When we combine two characteristics of varieties, a new plant is created. This is a natural process called cross-pollination. Professional seed breeders will control this process so that the desired characteristics of the ""parent"" lines are always passed on to the new hybrid seed F1. Because this process is controlled, you get, in contrast to the seedfast varieties, a much more uniform plant. All plants of a certain hybrid variety grow at the same speed, have the same shape and ripen at the same time.

In addition, taste, disease resistance or yield can be improved. Because of these characteristics, professional horticulture still works almost exclusively with F1 hybrid seeds. Contrary to what most people think, these hybrid seeds are also often used in organic farming. Breeding has nothing to do with genetic manipulation or artificial intervention in the DNA of the plant. Some well-known hybrid varieties are Pyros F1, Beefmaster F1, Fandango F1 and Christal F1.

3. Grafted tomatoes

In the past, grafted vegetable plants such as tomatoes, cucumber, aubergine and melon were only available for professional horticulture. Grafted tomatoes can therefore be described as the Rolls Royce of tomato plants. Fortunately, these grafted plants are now also available for the hobby gardener. Are you buying a grafted plant? Then it actually consists of two parts: a rootstock and the tomato plant itself. The rootstock is a wild plant with the main characteristics of very high vigour and resistance to disease. A tomato plant is then attached to this rootstock by means of a manual and technical procedure. The result is a grafted tomato plant with very high vigour and resistance to disease. Grafted plants can be bought at specialised garden centres and cost about €3.5 per piece. The biggest disadvantage of grafted plants is the limited supply.

Finally, a word about the term disease resistance. Actually, this is a misnomer and it is better to speak of increased disease tolerance. No single tomato variety is 100% resistant to the universally feared potato and tomato blight (Phytophthora).
You can reduce the chance of an outbreak of this disease by applying the following tips:

🍅 Choose the right tomato varieties.
🍅 Never water on top of the tomato plant, always at the base.
🍅 Ventilate sufficiently in the greenhouse (in summer also at night).
🍅 Are you growing outside? Then place a canopy above the tomato plants.
🍅 Place the potatoes as far as possible from the tomatoes in the garden. Then there is less chance that they can infect each other with the potato or tomato disease.