Tomato plants come in one of two types: Determinate and Indeterminate.
A Determinate plant knows what it will be when it’s a seed. It’s gonna grow into a bush, flower, fruit, wilt and die. An indeterminate plant isn’t an organism, it’s a program. A stalk will emerge, it will grow a stem, from the stem will arise an alternate pattern of leafy branches and flower clusters. At the crotch of each leafy branch will emerge a sucker. That sucker will grow like a full plant, alternating leaf flower clusters and leaf branches, with their own suckers.
Tomatoes also have an interesting characteristic: Anywhere they touch soil, they’ll put out roots.
So pinch a sucker off a young tomato plant (part of pruning them) and then stick that sucker in some fresh, moist soil. It’ll put out roots and become it’s own plant, genetically identical to the original.
Took 5 minutes, most of it walking.
This is so cool!
Will the new tomato plant have enough time to bear fruit, though? It started its growing season late.
In my area they will. My vines tend to die in December. Maybe’ I’d have gotten more tomatoes if I’d have bought more plants last month? But our bean crop fell through so I had some trellis space for some extra maters.