Tomatoes from Cuttings

John Douglas wrote to us from Finca de los Perezosos in Panama. “As [information from ECHO] suggested, we have been starting tomatoes by cuttings, which of course are faster than seeds and true to the parent. Both suckers and growing tips[work], but the growing tips seem to perform a bit better….You must use indeterminate plants. “Here in the country of Panama, ‘gringo’ plants love to die quickly. By flowering stage, all of our tomatoes that have been started by seed suffer from both fungal and bacterial leaf spot disease. However what I really want to point out is that when we start a cutting from an infected plant, the new plant is healthy for a decent amount of time. We are in flowering stage with healthy plants.

“Our tactic now is to make cuttings quickly and get rid of the old plants just as fast.”