Help needed from our esteemed tomato experts!

Caro

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Join Date: Apr 2009

Posts: 711
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#1

Help needed from our esteemed tomato experts!

01-07-2010, 08:10 PM

Experts, you know who you are (I just thought it to cheeky to ask you by name )

Attached is a picture of my tomato plant, which appears to have a huge (huge) sideshoot. (I'm basing this on the excellent thread from yesterday, that our experts took part in, and where TK posted great guiding photos). More difficult to see, but at the top it has a decent looking truss, hanging right next to a truss on the main stem.
Chop it off, i hear you say. BUT - due to being distracted when sowing the seed, I don't know whether this is a Banana Cream or Lemon Tree ). Now, banana cream is determinate, and lemon tree is indeterminate.

The other plant, hiding directly behind the one I've queried in the photo, has leaves that almost hang down right from the stem, rather than stand more upright, and seems to have split into two branches. So I'm wondering if this is Lemon Tree.

My questions are:

1) Is it yet safe for me to assume the pictured plant is the indeterminate, ie the banana Cream?
2) If so, should I remove that huge sideshoot?

Many, many, many thanks to anyone who takes the time to help!
Attached Files

DSC_0123.jpg (0, 143 views)

Caro

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day
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Tomatoking

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Join Date: Sep 2009

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01-07-2010, 09:02 PM

Hi Caro

Well, just in case no experts come along, I will try to help.
I enlarged the picture, to try and see if it would help but it didn't really.
The real problem this time of year is that with really thin leggy plants with poor trusses, all plants tend to keep stretching up.
Well first of all, contrary to my normal advice,I would cut the shoots at the head and leave the trusses that are now on them. You will have to tie a string to support them though, or tie them to a cane like you have.
The plant on the right has a slightly thicker stem. I would guess this to be the inderterminate plant, but like I said, it is really difficult to tell.
Leaving as many trusses as you can on the plant this way will make the plant put more effort into the trusses than the plant just keep stretching up.
The problem started with poor light levels at the start, and this in turn leads to poor fruit setting and an unbalanced plant.
Also shoots left too long on an indeterminate plant will cause a leggy plant.

I hope I have helped a little, this is a difficult one. Maybe a bigger picture taken further back might have helped slightly.

Mr TK's blog:
http://mr-tomato-king.blogspot.com/
2nd Jan early tomato sowing.

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