Fun with Cloning

[slugworth]

1 month old clone of topped oregon spring that originally had 4 cotyledons.
I don't normally use that type container but I wanted to take advantage of
the metal bottom and used a seed warming tray.No drainage or exotic powders.
Just a juicy potting soil mix kept warm.The rim did pose a problem with the root ball.
I had to keep soaking and squeezing to get it out.

[slugworth]

A John the Baptist tomato (actually a pantano romanesco) that got it's
head cut off in a transporting accident.
Strawberries kept it company during the healing process 100% in direct
sunlight all the time.No drainage.

[slugworth]

about the same vintage,3-4 week size

[AlittleSalt]

I have found that my family loves Sun Sugar tomatoes, so I'll be cloning some really soon. I have to grow plants in containers, so I'm going to clone them in the buckets they are going to grow in anyway.

[slugworth]

Tricky,since the mix has to very wet so the cuttings don't die.
I tried that with the original oregon spring plant and the leaves started to droop
from the excessive water.I put the plant outdoors to try to dry out/recover.

[AlittleSalt]

That is a good point about keeping it wet enough. I'm going to have to think about it.

[slugworth]

Phoenix tomato cuttings 1 month after sticking into the soup.
Cutting on the left is a leaf,on the right is a branch.
After 2 weeks outdoors in the sun,the leaf cutting on the left
produced it's own stem.

[slugworth]

I never cloned a leaf b4 so that was fun

[Solanum315]

Did a little cloning off of a few Black Krim plants this year. It is amazing how rough they can look for the first few days and still pull through. If you can kill a tomato plant, gardening is probably not your thing....

One thing I noticed is that clones seem to know that they are not seedlings of equivalent size and put out flowers and fruit pretty quickly, almost in synch with the plant that they came off of.

[tryno12]

Slug, thanks for the posts and the contained info.
Pete

[Barb_FL]

I have a long season and clone a lot of my tomato plants. What I really like is for large tomatoes especially, you get fruit set much lower on the plant.

I've found some varieties clone super easy.

I didn't know you could clone a branch. Really?????

I've never had any luck cloning a pepper plant.

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

I have a long season and clone a lot of my tomato plants. What I really like is for large tomatoes especially, you get fruit set much lower on the plant.

I've found some varieties clone super easy.

I didn't know you could clone a branch. Really?????

I've never had any luck cloning a pepper plant.

Hey Barb, while tomato cuttings are super simple, and require no rooting hormone, woody stemmed plants like peppers do much better if dipped in the sauce.

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by AKmark

Hey Barb, while tomato cuttings are super simple, and require no rooting hormone, woody stemmed plants like peppers do much better if dipped in the sauce.

Damsel for the large ones is by far the easiest and fastest. I don't think I had any that didn't take. Direct into potting mix (promix) or a promix/coir blend, or Rockwool.

Any of the Sun Series are super easy too. (SunGold, SunOrange, SunChocola, etc). It makes buying the expensive seeds a non-issue.

The 2 I grew from Johnny's own: Cherry Bomb and 5 star Grape were unbelievable cloned.

I had a 5 star grape plant that had every been super chewed on via a tomato hornworm. I cloned it with zero leaves.

I even cloned the determinate Mountain Fresh Plus.

I find the clones are easily as productive as the original. Now that I think of it, I really only clone the productive ones.

I never noticed a difference cloning with Clonex, etc or not so I don't bother anymore.

---
I also have a $50 cloner but rarely use it. However, in the cloner, Damsel and SunOrange cloned the fastest.

Last fall I grew Cherry Bomb and also Nectar. I thought Nectar was better (sweeter, larger, etc).

But as a clone, Cherry Bomb blew it away.

Momotaro I only tried once as the plant was young and cloned the bottom sucker. It also took.

My season lasted until late July because of all these clones.

[slugworth]

The red robin clones are actually doing better than the plants
I cut them from.

I took cuttings from Coyote, Black Dragon, Matt's Wild Cherry, and Marion a little later, this year. I rooted Coyote in soil outside (much earlier than I rooted the others) since we had a cool early season (but it was stunted for a while). I rooted the others in water (they rooted fast, though) and transplanted them; no stunting problems. Black Dragon has set fruit, and maybe Matt's Wild Cherry. Coyote might have ripe fruit by now.