Grafting dahlias

Bessie

Last night I came across a novel idea, "Grafting dahlias", in a research paper(sorry can't find the link). Wanting to find more information, a search brought up a well done Youtube video of a grafted dahlia. It stirs up a lot more questions than answers. As a side note, I was surprised a few years back to learn of grafted tomatoes plants and tomato rootstock being commercially sold. Could a dahlia variety be so valuable that grafting would be worthwhile? Reading a few more articles on crop grafting, I'm reminded that grafting opens up a variety of possibilities for overcoming soil born diseases and unfavorable soil growing conditions. "Tough as nails" tubers could be utilized. The article I can't locate today had a picture of a cutting going directly into the tuber, not grafted on a stem, as the following video demonstrates.

Experimental Grafted Dahlia Plant

https://youtu.be/RHAc1SNS9cU

blown_dry

Interesting! Grafted tomatoes were a thing here a while back because I guess they do better in our mild climate which normally does not have enough heat to ripen tomatoes. I suppose it would not help with storage issues as the grafted bit would not be part of what over-winters generally. On the other hand, I've definitely had things sprout from the stalk after winter.

Teddahlia

I grew grafted tomatoes and cantaloupe. The tomatoes are grafted onto a special "wild" tomato rootstock that grows like crazy and resists most disease and grows so vigorously that you need to be ready to tie it up to a telephone pole. It out grew my normal tomato set up and by several feet. The tomatoes were not different from normal ones but there were more of them. The cantaloupe was a sick joke as 20 huge fruits all ripened at the same time and the plant had invaded and taken over the watermelons next door. No second crop and we ate half of one of the huge melons.
So, one would need rootstock of a really vigorous dahlia and probably it would need to be octaploid? or maybe not. The tree dahlia is not octoploid from what I understand. Old House Dahlias is selling tree dahlias this year.

SteveM

Teddahlia So, one would need rootstock of a really vigorous dahlia and probably it would need to be octaploid? or maybe not.

it looks like there are some interesting possibilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAc1SNS9cU

Teddahlia

Octaploid appears not to be an issue. Lots of work for for moderate success in this video. This is the kind of thing that a backyard grower who does not have a lot of room could try. Perhaps a really nice giant dahlia would do well. As I said Mark Harvey at Old House Dahlias told me he has stock of Imperialis to sell.

Bessie

Teddahlia thanks Ted. To cut costs I think a nice plant of Hollyhill Donnatella( in stock in my tuber storage) would make a nice rootstock. This got me thinking of bud grafting. One use case would be saving a bud/sprout from a "dying tuber" and placing it on the location of an excised sprout of a healthy sprouting tuber. This might be an alternative way to save the genetic material, when one would usually be making a cutting from the sprout of the dying tuber. Example of bud grafting citrus: https://fruitmentor.com/bud-grafting-citrus-trees