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Growing Tomatoes

should I worry about a broken branch?

10 years ago

An errant wiffleball landed on my Black Zebra breaking off one of the larger branches near the center of the stem. I pinched it off and below is what it looks like. Is this injury going to be fatal to the plant at this young age? Should I just replace it with another plant from my local nursey while supply is still available?

{{gwi:1325632}}

Comments (9)

edweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
10 years ago
Not to worry, the plant will be fine.
njitgrad
Original Author
10 years ago
Ed, thanks for the vote of confidence.

My knowledge of raising tomatoes is limited because in the past I used to have 24+ plants so losing one was not an issue. However, at my new house I am down to 12 plants due to space constraints so every plant counts.

The fact that this plant is very young (I started it indoors from seed in mid-April) had me a little concerned.

How does losing a branch affect the health of a plant? How does a plant recover? Is there anything that I should do to prevent the possiblity of disease? Should anything be applied to the wounded stem?
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SunshineZone7
10 years ago
I am no expert but people do prune the bottom branches off so they don't touch the ground and the plants are fine. I don't think losing that branch will have any affect at all.
digdirt2
10 years ago
Happens all the time and is normally no problem. The plants do fine.

Lots of discussions here about 'broken branch'.

Dave
digdirt2
10 years ago
deleted duplicate - every post seems to be duplicating today

This post was edited by digdirt on Tue, May 28, 13 at 11:06
njitgrad
Original Author
10 years ago
What about this guy? I had plastic sheeting covering my beds this past weekend and one of the wind gusts lifted my sheeting causing a plank of wood (which was weighing down the plastic during the daytime) to crash on the plant severing two branches with the larger being one of the top two branches of the plant. The arrow in the pic is pointing to the bigger branch that was lost.

{{gwi:1325633}}
Bets
10 years ago
The one in the second pic will be fine too. I believe I can see where it is already starting to grow a new leader, or main stem, from the place the stem broke. If not, one of the so called "suckers" (new lateral brances) will become your new main stem.

Overall, both your plants look great, but when the plants get a bit taller, you may want to remove any leaves that touch the growing medium.

Betsy
edweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
10 years ago
Yeah, that's why I don't prune plants. They are extremely resilient. Whenever a branch goes missing, two replace it :-) Yes, it will be fine too.
njitgrad
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks, you guys saved me a trip and a few bucks for new plants.

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