Air Layering Tomato Plants & experiment

We took a used water bottle, 16 ounce, and modified it to fit one of the branches of a tomato plant we have (Purple Cherokee to be precise).
Filled it with potting mix and waiting to see the results. We did not angle notch the stem just wrapped it in the bottle, top open bottom sorts closed a bit to allow for drainage.

My question is this:

Do clones grow twice as fast and produce twice as much as the parent plant?
(A pothead told me that cloned plants do this).

Additionally, some say to use raw honey as a rooting agent. Anyone heard of this practice?


Interesting experiment: what happens if you place a container of dirt on a stem as if you were going to air propagate but leave it there? Will that branch benefit more than the parent even though it can still get more from the parent plant? Will both the parent and that branch benefit?

Tomato plants are vines. In nature those vines sprawl along the ground and self root as the plant grows thus giving more roots to the plant.

Perhaps add in a drip irrigator to that bottle and weak fertilizer solution?

Seems a guaranteed way to avoid nematodes and some other issues.

Or even use a container that held water only - sort of a hybrid hydroponics/dirt combo?
In that case you would never worry about blossom end rot, right?

Makes you wonder if the plant would produce even more tomatoes. Or bigger ones. Or even both.


Edit: added 2 pics.

Kai Walker wrote:My question is this:

Do clones grow twice as fast and produce twice as much as the parent plant?
(A pothead told me that cloned plants do this).

Additionally, some say to use raw honey as a rooting agent. Anyone heard of this practice?

The simple answer to your first question is no. A tree cloned (even if grown on its own roots) will produce identically to the parent plant given the same circumstances. A potato is a clone. A sweet potato is a clone. I've cloned tomatoes before and they were essentially identical to the parent.

I have attempted to use raw honey, but I have no evidence that it works. Maybe I'm using it wrong. None of the plants "took," which is no guarantee since I don't use rooting hormone normally. I just used it in water.

On the others, you'll have to test it and let us know.

hau Kai,

Clones do not grow enhanced, they are simply new plants with the same genetics as the parent plant.

Tomatoes are members of the nightshade family, to properly root these you need to open their cambium to the new "rooting medium", just like a tree, also some willow water or other rooting hormone speeds up the process.

Raw honey is an antibiotic/ disinfectant not a rooting hormone, using it to heal wounds is the proper use of honey on plants and animals.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:hau Kai,

Clones do not grow enhanced, they are simply new plants with the same genetics as the parent plant.

Tomatoes are members of the nightshade family, to properly root these you need to open their cambium to the new "rooting medium", just like a tree, also some willow water or other rooting hormone speeds up the process.

Raw honey is an antibiotic/ disinfectant not a rooting hormone, using it to heal wounds is the proper use of honey on plants and animals.

Redhawk

We have rooted tomato cuttings without exposing anything. Just tossed it in water, shade the root zone from sunlight, and in a week-ish we have roots growing. But if any sunlight hits the underwater stem it resists growing any roots.
Roots came from the sides of the stem not the cut bottom when we rooted/cloned a plant.

Won't know if the above experiment will work or not for another week or two.

By then I should be able to upload a pic or two.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:hau Kai,

Clones do not grow enhanced, they are simply new plants with the same genetics as the parent plant.

Tomatoes are members of the nightshade family, to properly root these you need to open their cambium to the new "rooting medium", just like a tree, also some willow water or other rooting hormone speeds up the process.

Raw honey is an antibiotic/ disinfectant not a rooting hormone, using it to heal wounds is the proper use of honey on plants and animals.

Redhawk

Trivia: https://didyouknow.org/aspirin/


American Indians used to chew on the willow bark as a treatment for various issues.

Here is my reference to the experiment:

hau Kai, um... you did know that I'm native American yes?  Willow bark has many uses to us including; medicine, basketry, building material, flavoring, etc.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:hau Kai, um... you did know that I'm native American yes?  Willow bark has many uses to us including; medicine, basketry, building material, flavoring, etc.

Redhawk

No I did not. No offense ever intended - only praise for Indian ingenuity and survivability as well as other characteristics.. I have friends who are part Cherokee. One I dated a while back too (but alas we lived 5 states apart and long distance relationships do not work out well)

Perhaps you could start a thread on all those things? Would be useful for the off the grid folks and is in a roundabout way perma-CULTURE....

No worries, I didn't take offense at all, I thought it was a great bit of information my friend.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:No worries, I didn't take offense at all, I thought it was a great bit of information my friend.

Redhawk

Whew! Had me worried there for a bit. Hate to offend anyone.
Happy to be of service!

I posted a thread with the results here:

https://permies.com/t/115702/Tomato-Cloning

I think the term 'air layering' might be a misnomer since the rooting was done in soil not air alone.

On that new thread I will try to post additional cloning techniques if I can (and have time).