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pupillacharites

Side Shoot (suckers) and vigor

PupillaCharites
9 years ago

I've always assumed, maybe incorrectly:

"It is only the growing conditions of both mother plant and cuttings' plants that figure, so that a rooted side shoot from a lanky or stubby plant of a basically true OP can turn out anywhere between stubby and lanky."

I surfed around looking for some science or authoritative basis to confirm this assumption, but couldn't find anything. Anyone who has rooted a lot of side shoots for OP's that give the impression of having variation in plant size beyond how you cultivated them, does my assumption seem ok, or is there a definite tendency of, for example some varieties that have variation in plant size, a stouter plant's side shoots to produce stout plants from its cuttings?

Another question is whether that means it isn't stable, but I'd like to ignore that question to ask about the experience of others. I am assuming the plants had adequate and comparable light as seedlings and just grew differently by something random ;-)

PC

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Thu, Oct 23, 14 at 14:17

Comments (4)

  • grubby_AZ Tucson Z9
    9 years ago

    Every cloning I have ever done of an indeterminate, except for soil layering, has turned out skinny. They seem to grow, but don't get stout and the growth that reaches beyond the supports breaks a lot.

    I don't know why. Probably it's my techniques, which tend towards the lazy and casual.

  • PupillaCharites
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks g_m for the thoughts on that. I also had that leggy problem with cuttings but solved it by doubling the light I give seedlings on cuttings as soon as they are for sure rooted.

    Maybe for yours it is that side shoot cuttings/clones need more light than seedlings? I've noticed that in mine, that when seedlings develop they need low light, but with the rootings I did as soon as they rooted they basically needed full Sun (Probably 75% AZ Sun LOL).

    I asked because I am starting to really think that some seeds, even from the same isolated blossom get the short or compact end of the genetic stick while others get the vigorous one. Leggy is a little different the way I think about it, it's mainly light related . I haven't propogated many cuttings but some get stout, though I blast them with light. I lose half of them because I don't monitor the bulb closely enough (Daylength is too short now to just use Sun) and they get mummify where they touch it, which is a bummer since those are the biggest leaves to get moving down the line.

    PC

  • carolyn137
    9 years ago

    PC, I can't agree with the cut and paste at the top of your post.

    I've only taken cuttings of suckers, best known as lateral branches, from plants already in the ground that got damaged by critters or yanked out when my farmer friends hired man was cultivating.

    I just take one lateral branch, jam it in the ground next to the damaged plant, make a wee moat around it and keep it filled with water until I see new growth,

    And what grows and forms a new plant has always been identical to the plant habit of the damaged plant, not leggy, not lanky. After all, what's being done is cloning so I wouldn 't expect to see differences

    My season is too short to take cuttings for Fall plants.

    Carolyn

  • bigpinks
    9 years ago

    I grew 3 plants in containers started from suckers. I think the parent plants maybe alredy had a little blight at the bottom when I harvested the suckers and so the new plants did blight out sorta early. I pulled 10-12in suckers and put them in large size Styrofoam cups in potting soil and kept them wet in the shade for about 5 days and then hardened them off for three more(sun). The red-yellow gave me 4 almost identical 20 oz fruit in a cluster and that was that. A Cherokee Purple made about 5-6 10-12 oz fruit. The Bear Claw produced about about 6 tomatoes blemish free and about half as big as my garden ones....maybe 12 oz. Next yr I plan to have six late ones and maybe grow from seed to see if I can beat the blight in containers. About ten yrs ago I gave my Dad a sucker plant maybe 16in tall late and it grew some large wonderful tomatoes..Mr Stripey variety. He picked 3 20 oz tomatoes Thanksgiving week and took them with him to the W.Va mountains for deer season. His friends were amazed.

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