Is there a limit to how many times you can clone a tomato plant?

[Delerium]

I cloned a tomato plant from earlier last year and its still going and producing. And was wondering if i took sucker from that one and continued to keep that same plant going how many times can i actually do it? Is there a limit before something gets lost in the mix or does it just live forever?

[rags57078]

I am on my 3rd clone off a sungold and its true

[RootLoops]

i think eventually it will have to run out but i don't know the science behind it or how many people get, but i bet you would be able to run it for a while before having to collect seeds. keep notes on it and see how many times you can clone a clone!

[Guarimn]

Never thought about that. In the garden bulbs multiply and plants root themselves in the soil. It seems so natural.

[mrdoitall]

I would think forever...

[jmsieglaff]

I don't think there would be a theoretical limit--if you give the plant nutrients and water it will replicate cells. Eventually you may run into a mutation and the plant could change.

[carolyn137]

There are quite a few folks who try to keep a plant going over the winter. When it starts getting too big sucker cuttings are taken and preferably rooted in artificial mix, not water.

When those get too big sucker cuttings are taken from them, and then the timing comes in as to how soon before plant out time to take the last sucker cuttings to get the right size seedling.

Carolyn

[Cole_Robbie]

You can clone a plant forever. The problem tends to be all of the problems that happen over a long life span. If you get bugs or disease, you'll clone those too.

[Delerium]

Basically what i want to do is clone plants at its peak before plants are struck by disease (Especially the best performing plants). Kinda like a backup and if those clones get to big (plant those) or discard if i don't need it and restart another cutting from that clone to keep the plants small and manageable (& disease free). I see that this can be beneficial in the sense that if you wanted to re-grow a variety that you really like (& performed well in the garden) you won't have to regrow them from seeds that might have a chance of not being identical to the one you grew. I am already starting to make backup clones for the Fall garden and possibly continue those same plants for Winter (early Jan/Feb) Tomatoes. I just wasn't sure if the productivity of those clone of a clone will start to not perform the same later on.

[Got Worms?]

In the wild, tomatoes have been "cloning" themselves since... (forever)? Propagation by layering...as in the plant grows...falls over, roots where it touches ground, and the tip continues to grow even if the original section of plant from which it sprang withers and dies. This sometimes happens many times in all directions emanating from a single plant, giving way to a whole colony (or stand) of plants all having the same DNA. Makes me wonder; "Could this colony be construed as being a single organism?".

I'm not only wondering, but wandering as well.

While I'm not knowledgeable about how many times you can propagate a single tomato plant from a cutting, I can only say that I "believe" the limiting factor may just be your lifetime. Barring disease and accident,
plants are some of the oldest living things on earth.

With the right conditions, many common plants that we treat as annuals, and are in fact tender perennials and can be very persistent and long lived.

In the late '90s, a dear friend, since past, went home to visit his parents in Puerto Rico. I asked if he would bring me back some Aji Caballero seed, to which, at the time, I was quite partial to. He said "Okay, there's a tree in my fathers back yard, but they're probably all dried out by now." "Perfect" says I. "A Tree!, how big a tree?". "Not big, about 9 or 10' tall". Before the year was out, and on the same day that his father died of cancer, a hurricane took out the pepper plant.

As you can probably tell by now, my caffeine level is way high. The extent of my knowledge about DNA is probably from a mixture of Bones, CSI, Star Trek, and such. Sci Fi eludes to the impression of DNA being watered down, weakened, or degraded in some way by repeated cloning over many generations, while Crime shows focus on the unchanging surety of it.

So, what was the question, again?
Charlie

[NarnianGarden]

I've wondered about the same, as clones/suckers I had last year proved even more vigorous and fruitful than the mothership.

[epsilon]

one of the oldest living organisms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Clone

[NarnianGarden]

Some of the valued tea varieties in China and Japan are also grown as clone cuttings, and a bush can be several hundreds of years old.

[Stvrob]

I would think that disease would eventually kill it, A tomato in nature only needs to grow one season, and probably doesnt have the best developed immune system. But as you say, you are harvesting the suckers before they have had a chance to become diseased...If you are always successful I suppose you could continue for quite some time.
Bottom line...I have no idea.

[RootLoops]

if you can set up an indoor garden area you should be able to keep a mother plant of a particularly good one if it's indeterminate, don't know if a determinate would work. if you can keep a mother plant you could also probably graft on several varieties for future cloning.

that depends on if it would stay alive, but i would think with an ind you could trim it all the way down and it would start back up again as long as it didn't frost