Data on planting tomatoes deep

[Jarrod King]

Does anyone have a link to a study showing that burying tomato seedlings deep (even removing or burying leaves!) has a measurable beneficial effect? I have my doubts on this one. It sounds like the kind of thing humans would do and just repeat over and over because it sounds good. Googling hasn't turned up anything except lots of sites saying to bury them deep with no references. I want studies or examples of people doing it both ways and comparing.

Just because a plant has the ability to shoot roots from the green stem does that mean we should bury the roots it already made super deep and out of the fertile top soil layer and destroy the leaves it worked hard to make? I don't understand the logic behind making the stem reprogram the pluripotent cells and make roots, when it already has roots that are grown and programmed for that. It just seems counterintuitive to think that the seed doesn't know what it needs to do to grow well.

I could be totally wrong!

[Jarrod King]

Nevermind I found this-

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/...2/190.full.pdf

Seems I was wrong. I'll be planting to the first true leaf.

[whoose]

Thanks I plant out Saturday.

[rxkeith]

i think the more important point is to have as much of the stem in the soil as you can.
planting deep isn't the only way to do it. trenching may be a better way to go, and i'll tell you why.
where i live, we can have 40 to 50 degree weather in mid june. we have had frost warnings in late june. it takes awhile for my soil to warm up. i have planted tomatoes deep before, and when i dug them up in the fall, what i saw was the original root ball, not much bigger than when i planted it, some bare stem, then a much larger root ball just below the surface of the soil and down a couple inches.
if you trench your plants especially when they are larger, you have more stem exposed to warmer soil, and your plant will take off faster than deep planting. thats my experience where i live. try doing it both ways, and compare the results.



keith

[Gardeneer]

It is the root mass/size that gives the plant vigor. So by deep planting you are possibly making it to grow more roots. Now whether or not a BIG plant yields big crop that is another issue.
Gardeneer

[Anthony_Toronto]

When I've had seedlings tall enough to pull off a few sets of leaves and lay the plant horizontally in a trench, bending the growing tip upward, at the end of the season when I pulled it up there were adventitious roots along the extra portion of buried stem, but they weren't very big and weren't anything like the root ball.

[ilex]

An old man told me to do a knot ... it works and its easier.

[Chapinz8]

Originally Posted by ilex

An old man told me to do a knot ... it works and its easier.

Would love for you to expand on that a little. That's the first time I've ever heard that.

[BigVanVader]

Sarcasm perhaps?

[TC_Manhattan]

Here is a link to an article Carolyn referenced in a thread over in Gardenweb back in 2014:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010137toc.html

Interesting information and drawings. I tried this last year and what I dug up at season's end was amazing!

[ilex]

Nope.

Long stem, bend it until you do a knot, then bury it. Lot of stem buried in a smaller hole.

[zeroma]

As for me and my garden, not to knot... to me that just sounds silly. Like when a tree becomes strangled from being root bound. IMHO

zeroma

[salix]

I think it sounds like a very useful and practical method, although mine would never get long enough to enable a good knot without breaking due to brittleness. Perhaps allow to get a bit dry and wilty first? Zeroma, I don't think that would be a problem, the roots only have one short season to grow.

[imp]

Originally Posted by TC_Manhattan

Here is a link to an article Carolyn referenced in a thread over in Gardenweb back in 2014:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010137toc.html

Interesting information and drawings. I tried this last year and what I dug up at season's end was amazing!

I bookmarked that paper after skimming it a bit- what a neat source!

I always do plant ours deeper each time- from the seedling trays to the solo cups they go down to the leaves, then after they are getting set out for final planting, again, down deeper they go.

[ilex]

That man sows in a very big container. He gets hundreds seedlings which are somewhat skinny. He told me that those that break when trying to knot them were not good and must be thrown.

It must be a family practice that who knows for how long has been going. He grows old heirlooms, one is even a landrace, and tomatoe landraces are VERY RARE.