Tomatoes from cuttings

Phil@Tyalgum starts with ...
I read recently that tomatoes grow well from cuttings. I tried a few from my favourite heirloom varieties and they have roots growing out of the bottom of the pots after only a week or so. They even take off in a vase of plain water. Could be a good way of speeding up growth to get fruit.

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Steven says...
Ive never thought of that. You can do that with basil too.

It might be a good idea to preserve your favorite tomato varieties. I grow several varieties each year so i dont trust growing them from seed.

Thanks

Lorna says...
Hey John Mc, I over Winter cuttings on my patio too, so that I can get a head start in Spring with some early plants. It works a treat, and the plants that I have there now are really healthy. We had a hard frost last night(!), that killed off the first tray of Roma seedling that I had going ready to plant out. They were at the stage of being hardened off outside the cloch, and got properly banjoed. The shoots on the Yacon are all burnt too. I was not expecting that now.

Lorna says...
Being an F1 hybrid does not effect the plants rooting ability. They will root just the same. Tomatoes are like weeds, you just snap them off, stick them in, and away they go.....
The laterals that I prune off to make single stem plants often throw roots out into the damp mulch and get themselves going!

Jantina says...
Hi Helen, the short answer is yes.

Jimmy says...
I have just caught on to this myself and about 10 days ago put some of my pruned suckers in to jars of water with a miniscule amount of seaweed fertiliser. I have root systems about 5-10mm growing on the stems. How big should I let the root systems get before potting them?

Jimmy says...
Cheers Phil.

John Mc says...
the short answer is no techo. Saying that, I've over wintered tomatoes as well.
Some of the commercial guys keep tying the long stalks together like rope as the plant matures and lays it in the channel along the trellis. They could grow on indefinately with all the right conditions.
I tried to convince my commercial tomato mate to trial some clones on a row but he wouldn't be in it. He buys 10k plants at $1 ea. There's a reasonable amount of savings there and there is dozens of perfectly growing clones on each plant. Maybe the plants have PBR or something.

Julie says...
I find that my capsicums grow OK next season, but the fruit is usually smaller. I'm going to feed them better this time to see if that is an improvement.