Seemingly healthy tomato plant not growing why??

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Originally Posted by cloz

I found this picture here on Tville of Sophie's Choice. Is this a true picture of what the plant should look like? If it is, then there is no doubt they sent me the wrong seed.

I've been happy with Tomatofest but I am pretty new at this. Gary's always answered my questions and shipped quickly. I've had fantastic germination also.
However, after using these boards and learning a whole bunch of stuff, I've learned that sometimes you get seeds that are incorrect. I didn't even think about it when I first started.

There is no doubt in my mind that two years ago, I got Costoluto Genovese seeds when I was supposed to get Large Red from Tomatofest. Took me a while to figure it out but thanks to this site, I'm learning everyday.

Doesn't mean I won't use their site again, I will.

With whatever you may have, I hope it turns out to be a great tomato for you.

[dice]

Found the seed packet..

As far as I can see, those are all indeterminates that grow to good size
(5' tall or more). Black Russian is one where different people describe
growth habit and fruit size differently, so that is one where more than
one cultivar are in circulation with that name. So that is a possibility.
It could also be simply a plant from a stray seed from something not
listed that happened to get into the saved seeds or packed seeds.

[cloz]

Originally Posted by BigBrownDogHouse

With whatever you may have, I hope it turns out to be a great tomato for you.

Time (and some ripe tomatoes) will hopefully help solve the mystery. Since all 3 plants that I planted look the same, it appears to be an incorrectly labeled seed packet.

[cloz]

My container planted (2 gal pot) "Faux Sophie's Choice" is now 42 inches tall and growing. My garden planted "Faux Sophie's Choice" is 36" very robust with thick main stem and still growing. Both appear to be indeterminate. I have 73 varieties planted this year and none of the have the sprawling growth habit of the Sophie's Choice pictures I have come across. So even if I had mislabeled it (which I did not do.) I still don't have Sophie's in any of my plants.
I sent an email with a picture of my "Sophie's" to Tomatofest about a week and a half ago to see if they had received any other questions on their Sophie's seed, but I guess they did not deem my question worthy of an answer. Maybe they are too busy to bother answering customers questions at this time of the year.

[cleo88]

Those pictures definitely don't look like Sophie's Choice to me.
I think I had the real deal - this is from 2 years ago. Am growing it again this year and it is somehow more spindly but has the same shape - more wide than tall, almost.

[cloz]

That looks like what I came across in my picture searches. Mine doesn't look anything like that. Yours isn't even close to the railing height. Mine is a foot above the railing right now and growing.

[lurley]

I have about 15 (at least) plants that do not have the right leaf type for what they should be this year, will have to wait on fruit. Normally I would probably not even have noticed, but I did dense seed planting this year, so when you have a bunch of little seedlings all together you notice the odd ball. All but two were from commercial seed sources. Tomatofest had the most (THREE Sister plants were wrong out of 15 germinated, not counting the other varieties that had one wrong), followed closely by Baker Creek. Who knows how many others might be wrong if they are wrong but have the right leaf type, many of them are new varieties for me and unless the fruit is the wrong color, I will be oblivious probably until winter when I have time to go over notes and investigate.

[Elliot]

We are having the same problem. We planted over a dozen tomato plants. Half are doing well and the other half are not growing that well at all. I have never seen this before either and we have been growing tomato plants for many years.

Could this be a blight or some other kind of disease that infested the nurseries or seed nurseries?

Elliot

[RayR]

It's been a challenging year, that's for sure, but I have not seen any indication of disease at all here in WNY. The biggest problem has be the amount of rain that has come down in very short periods of time which has left the soil saturated with water.Since almost of my plants are in the ground, it has caused some bad growth problems with some plants and probably accounts for the generally smaller size of most plants for this time of year. Other people I know around here that grow tomatoes have had similar issues. I've had to replace 4 plants this month that were stunted with much healthier backups I had growing in 10" pots.
Things have been dry here now for about a week or so after the last massive deluge of rain, and all my plants and perking up and showing stronger growth, all are flowering and some have set fruit now. Disease has been the least of my concerns, but Septoria and Early Blight usually doesn't appear here until late July or early August, which thankfully are the only tomato diseases I've ever had to deal with.

[Elliot]

Hopefully this it the cause. My cucumber plants are growing so fast but some of the tomato plants are very small. One even has fruit on it and it the tomatoes get any larger, it will damage the stem which is very narrow. I would say they are bonsai trees.