You can pinch off a tomato sucker (which has a growing tip) and root it in plain water. In 7-10 days it will have roots long enough to transplant into cup. I…
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How to Easily Clone Tomatoes and Root Tomato Suckers – The Rusted Garden 2013
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Wow
It is such an easy way to get more plants. I may attempt bringing a couple plants inside over the winter and continuously keep them going through cloning, and then clone in the spring for the garden. It might be a little bit of a task, but free tomatoes and not starting everything from seed sounds like an easy start.
Yeah maybe it was just to immature. I am finding cloning addicting and so successful that I have dozens of rooted sucker with no place to grow them.
Just revisited this video…I tried making a clone of my Amana Orange with a sucker that may have been too small…within the same amount of time I got two black krims to grow roots and they are now in soil. The Amana Orange just turned to mush at the bottom…must have been too short and not enough plant to do the kind of work I was asking it to.
Yes, starting from a sucker seems like it’s about a 3 week head start over seeds. I’m going to try that next year, letting early suckers grow to a decent size and then root them, as an easy way to get additional plants going. I just planted one and have one more that I’m giving another week to root and that’ll be it for the season.
Im think I can root some larger suckers in my area early July and get them in mid July for mid size 70 day tomatoes. I think sucker rooting might save me like 4 weeks of seed to transplant. But I am learning this season.
How far into the summer does it make sense to root tomato suckers? I’m thinking about the “effective” growing season and how much time there is for a seedling like this to grow large enough to produce fruit. Does it depend upon the variety of the tomato?
A sucker still could form in the joint I bet.
Great point. And while a plant will re-establish roots if cut at the base, that definitely wouldn’t fall into the category of cloning. I did it because I was thinning my plants and wanted to see if I could save the ones I thinned, as opposed to just tossing them.
Thanks. I will try that in the future.
it helps to cut the stem into a V, so the cambrium layer is more exposed and also cut off as much leaves as possible so that the plant will focus energy on rooting, and always keep them in the shade when cloning
yeah any vine plant roots easy, and so do herbs, you can take 3 tomatoes and create a whole field of them.
thanks
It works well. I am making rootings as a disease plan. I am put some rather large suckers in cups and they are rooting. I am amazed at how fast I might get an new flowering tomato.
great vid thanks!!
Whats the video?
I TRIED this….and sadly…..they all died very fast.
Thanks Gary. Ihave planted new seeds directly in the soil and will see what happens
Thanks for showing how easy and simple it is. I was going to order rock wool plugs to root them in but now I see I don’t need to. Very good! There is a broadleaf evergreen tree related to Laurel that I want to root and fear it won’t be as easy.
Hey Gary. Ive got a quick beginners quedtion regarding my tomatoes. Ive just uploaded a video with it if you wouldnt mind checking it out. Thanks!
It works quite well.
Thanks.
Taste and clone… a good method.
Hmmm. I don’t. Might just have been bad luck with the transplant and some root issue. I would try a direct sow in the same spot at this point. Beans grow fast.
Hi Gary
this is not about tomato plants but my bush beans about a month ago i planted some seeds in a start seed container and transplanted them two weeks after they sprouted and grew to a height of about 4inches; they have since dried up although i watered every other day. The temp. is about 30 degrees Celsius. I understand from reading that bush beans like sun but these were not in direct sun. Do you have any idea what could be the problem?