How to clone tomato plants

[21again]

Just found this which may be of interest to other newbies.



How to Clone Tomato Plants - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com

[Paulottie]

Why????......seems a waste of time to me as they are so easy to save seed and propagate. plus difficult and time consuming (and expensive) to keep them alive in winter...plus the risk of disease.

Very easy to choose best plants in spring and clone from those if you have the room for a second batch...so how many seeds do you need for that...not many.

[terrier]

.. but plants grown from saved seed may not be true to type!
I think this is aimed at the American growers and probably it's easier to overwinter plants in warmer climates (so stateside winters can be worse than ours). I've overwintered tomato plants from cuttings without too much trouble in the past.(Bonsai tomato plants in fruit are a great coversational piece early winter), although I've never gone so far as to use them as cuttings for my next years plants, but why not?

[Snadger]

There has been a certain type of sweet yellow tomato that has been cloned for years on our allotment site by a few dedicated growers. It has no name but is apparently very sweet and fruitful. They don't want to loose the strain so just keep cloning it each year.
Because a few plotholders are involved if one person loses his over winter another will supply him with cuttings in the spring.

It's rather strange to see these clones in partially heated greenhouses alll winter, usually surrounded with bubblewrap!

[zazen999]

And presumably, they end up being alot tougher as they get older, and kick start themselves earlier when it warms up?

[maytreefrannie]

I did this with a few sideshoots in the summer - I learned on this site that they root easily, so I stuck a couple of 'armpits' into the pot near the main plant. I started late with these but they rooted OK and I got a couple (as in, two) fruits from each. Is this the same as is suggested on the site?

I didn't know about keeping them over winter, I think I'll try it if there's anything left on this year's plants, they're mostly withered off by now.

Would this work also with F1 plants? The F1 seeds may not reproduce true to the original plant, but I guess this method would bring about exact reproduction. Has anyone tried it with F1?

[zazen999]

I did this with a few sideshoots in the summer - I learned on this site that they root easily, so I stuck a couple of 'armpits' into the pot near the main plant. I started late with these but they rooted OK and I got a couple (as in, two) fruits from each. Is this the same as is suggested on the site?

I didn't know about keeping them over winter, I think I'll try it if there's anything left on this year's plants, they're mostly withered off by now.

Would this work also with F1 plants? The F1 seeds may not reproduce true to the original plant, but I guess this method would bring about exact reproduction. Has anyone tried it with F1?

Judging from that link, F1s and expensive heritage toms would be ideal for this method.