|
| Hey all I accidentally pinched out the growing tip of a tomato seedling I was planting today. I'm not sure if I should just leave it alone or throw the plant out. There is a sucker starting to develop right below where the growing tip was. Will the plant pump all its energy into this stem and have that function as the main steam from now on? |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| Probably. Depends in part on if it is a determinate or an indeterminate variety. Dave |
|
- Posted by Christacharlene 6 (My Page) on Sat, Apr 19, 14 at 23:12
| It will probably be fine. I broke off the entire top half of a cherokee purple plant last year when I was caging it. It grew back and produced as good as the other Cherokee Purple plants in my garden. |
|
| @digdirt Thanks. For full disclosure, the variety is Momotaro, so it's an indeterminate. Would this make it more or less likely to grow back? |
|
| There is a sucker starting to develop right below where the growing tip was %%%%%%%%%% You have already provided the answer to your own question. Your plant will be bushy, lacking the main stem. In reality, you have topped it by accident. . |
|
| My baby ripped all three stalks off my aunt ruby's german green -- straight to the soil. It grew back but it looked like a lost cause for a couple of weeks. Also if you pinch the top of an indeterminant plant just once it wont make the whole plant automatically bushy... you'd have to allow all of the joints to grow suckers for that. |
|
| Here's a follow up. I have beautiful seven foot tall plant (or taller), but it only gave me ONE giant tomato. (This is the one that Todzilla ripped off to the ground.) I've saved the seeds and will try again... |
|
| If you had a beautiful plant with lots of leaves but only one tomato, either the weather wasn't right for fruit to set, or you had too much nitrogen in your fertilizer. Go easy on nitrogen with tomatoes. |
Here is a link that might be useful: What's Growin' On?
|
| The seedling will be ok. Most likely it will be the most beautiful plant you have. It happened to me. Regarding tall plants with 1 tomato, same thing happened to me last year with a Brandywine - huge but only one. This year, I have 2-3 plants with few stems, that are 8 ft. tall, and just started to have flowers - mid August. Most likely there will be no ripped tomatoes on those plants. I also have plants - NOT bush - that had flowers when they were 1 ft. high. |
This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Fri, Aug 15, 14 at 14:15
|
| I accidentally broke the growing tip off a determinate seedling (Latah) and had room so I planted it (June 30) to see what it would do. A lateral (sucker) did take over and when I transplanted it I pointed that straight up, the plant has grown but is much shorter than the others, 2ft tall rather than 3-4ft (I planted 2 other Latahs at the same time, right next to it, for comparison). It got flowers and now fruit on the tip of that lateral so I thought it was all over, that I would only get fruit from that cluster, there weren't any other flower trusses, but other laterals have grown taller and I have flowers on those. I will report back on fruit set. It will be much less productive than the other Latahs but may not be as bad as I originally thought. |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Growing Tomatoes Forum
Information about Posting
- You must be logged in to post a message. Once you are logged in, a posting window will appear at the bottom of the messages. If you are not a member, please register for an account.
- Please review our Rules of Play before posting.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review your post, make changes and upload photos.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- Before posting copyrighted material, please read about Copyright and Fair Use.
- We have a strict no-advertising policy!
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
Learn more about in-text links on this page here
