Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Got some photos of tomato cuttings that range in age from 1 to 3 weeks. Just trimmed the lower branches and stuck them into the gravel.

When ever I trim some of my dirt tomatoes the old branches end up as new plants.
Some of my cherry tom's are 3rd gen over a 2 year period.

Root development on tomato cutting less than 2 weeks old. More roots are coming from the stem than the bottom.

cool... I never realised they were so prolific.

Things do strike well in AP. Although tomato will strike very well as shown, I have always found the ones planted from seed to outperform the struck ones significantly.

Could that be because of the amount of the stem under the gravel. These ones were growing roots along 10cm of the stem. Normally I would not bury that much of the cutting but I've got a few toms in and these were from trimming them so I was a bit rough on the planting. The cherry ones I usually do perform similar to the original. Hard to tell now the original was pulled out a couple of years ago.

I'd always put plenty of stem under the gravel to maximise roots. I did however find that regardless, the root ball on a struck tom was just not as good as one grown from seed.

I wouldn't discourage doing it though, because my experience may not replicate for others. I guess it would depend on so many variables.

like this??

And if put the cutting in rooting hormone first? You think it could get roots as good as from seed? Amazing how easily they took ....
Another one for AP!

The point I'm making is that the cuttings get these great roots at the start, but just don't seem to develop as good a root ball or general growth as a seed grown one.

I reiterate though that this may just be my experience and may not occur with others.

The fruit production would be helped by making a cutting of a lateral.
Any thing else will grow but not neccessarilly bare fruit!

also if you have long tomatoes plants that are running along you r growbed, just plant the stem in the gravel and cover over and you will get root growth off that point as well.
Have an example of it in my garden at the moment, really cool.

[quote="Dufflight"]When ever I trim some of my dirt tomatoes the old branches end up as new plants.
Some of my cherry tom's are 3rd gen over a 2 year period.[/quote

But do they produce as good of a crop as a seeded plant. The plantations down south use a new seedling every crop, and as I have seen here in my own garden, the first flush is huge, then the next flush of the crop is less, an so on.

So my question is, Is a cloned tomato plant going to produce maximum Kg's???

it depends on the part of the cloning
'see above'

What you get from a cutting could also depend on the type of the original plant. Something like a cherry tom, you might not even want as heavy a yield as the original plant produced so a reduced yield might be more appropriate for home salads. I've had some cherry tomato plants that produced huge amounts early on and we were having to take bags of the things to work and try and give them away.

Other varieties of tomato that are determinate might not do as much with cuttings as there is some sort of trigger about how big they grow and then they stop. The indeterminate vines just keep going and going and going and going .............until something makes them stop. Anywhere the vines touch the ground/grow bed, they are likely to send down roots.

Tomato cuttings root pretty easy and I doubt rooting hormone would be necessary. I've taken cuttings off my stevia plants and I find that rooting hormone does improve my chances of having those survive and root. I haven't had much luck either way with the Moringa cuttings.