Across the wide Atlantic, in that home away from home of gardeners, ‘turbo charged’ vegetable plants are all the rage among English ‘grow your own’ aficionados. And when high street marketers such as B&Q get in on the act, there must be something in it. Then the popular newspapers woke to the backyard innovation.
Headlines proclaiming “Bigger and Better, the ‘Turbo Veg’ Cultivated to Provide a Bumper Crop” appeared. In the Daily Mail’s Science Section, Liz Hull explained how the turbo vegetable starts life as two top-quality seeds that are grown into two small plants. The plant that is used for the root version has a high resistance to soil borne diseases and the plant that is used for the shoot is selected for the flavour and abundance of its produce.
The roots and shoots are then grafted together to create a new ‘turbo charged’ plant. Steve Gay at Brit DIY chain B&Q, which plans to introduce them this April, says that turbo charged vegetables will appeal to the urban gardener with limited space. The price also appeals to B&Q – four times the usual price for vegetable plants, which are sold for 98p each, or about a buck fifty.
Eight varieties of tomatoes, one of chile, one pepper, one aubergine, and a sweet potato will set back English gardener lovers £3.98 each, around $6.50. But the only thing new about these veggies is their designation as being ‘turbo charged.’ Grafting is hardly a modern invention. Indeed it appears to have been discovered by the ancient Greeks.
In more recent times, it finds mention by Shakespeare mentions it in Henry IV, Part 2, Act V, Scene III: Shallow: Nay, you shall see my orchard where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of mine own grafting . . .The Bard of Stratford-Upon-Avon was referring to fruit trees, which, like roses in more modern times along with not a few other ornamentals, are regularly grafted. It was not until the 1920s that the practice of grafting a vegetable scion onto a rootstock was developed in Korea and Japan. Initially watermelons were grafted onto squash rootstock.
Today, well over three-quarters of vegetable cultivation in Korea uses grafted stock and more than half that in Japan. Grafting of vegetables protects against soil borne diseases and nematodes, especially under continuous commercial cropping under glass- or plastic-houses. It also protects against stress from floods, droughts and increased soil salinity. Grafting vegetables has become popular in the Mediterranean region, especially for raising tomatoes. It may also be used for raising those close relations of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (aubergines to Europeans) along with melons and cucumbers. It took some years to reach the home gardener, however.
Horticultural college students may have squinted, sweated and swore as they learnt how to blend members of the Solanaceae in what is essential laboratory work. But it wasn’t until well into the 21st century that grafted tomatoes were offered by online retailers. Dobies of Devon in the United Kingdom, for example, have offering grafted vegetables online since at least 2008.
Two years later, you could purchase three plants turbo-charged beef steak tomato Belriccio from Italy for £9.95. Dobies catalogue noted that, “They perform well outside, but are particularly recommended for greenhouse growing, where they’ll fulfill their full potential.”Earlier this year, a review by one known only by the handle ‘YewJayBee’ enthused that they had produced, “up to 12 large fruit per truss, 20-25 trusses per plant on 3 bottom laterals; fed every 3 days with Dobies tomato fertilizer.” The firm offers for this season and assortment of tomatoes, peppers (sweet and chilli) and cucumbers at three plants for £9.95, shipped in April or May.
A tip of the garden hat then is due to those Korean and Japanese horticulturists who initiated vegetable grafting.
A salute also to the merry marketers who dreamt up the catchy ‘turbo charged’ designation.
Finally, a clap on the vertebrae of the Brit gardeners willing to part with hard-earned cash to grow bigger, better and tastier produce. For it is no bunk just new in their beds.
