Tomatoes seems to have stopped growing

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Hi,

I have these two tomato plants which have produced quite big leaves, but since a couple of weeks they seem to have stopped getting any taller or to produce any new leaves. Do you know what could be the issue? Could it be because of the temperature, the highest in the shade currently at around 35 deg celcius? Thanks.
 

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Logan

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It looks like they've lost their leader growth. Have you pinched it out by mistake? They should grow from one of the leaves close to the stem. Choose the one at the top and pinch any out of the rest.
 
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It looks like they've lost their leader growth. Have you pinched it out by mistake? They should grow from one of the leaves close to the stem. Choose the one at the top and pinch any out of the rest.

Hello,

Many thanks for your reply. Yes I remember when it was much smaller, I removed one of the stems mistakenly thinking it was a sucker. This is visible in the first picture, reproduced in the red circle hereunder. The leaves continued to grow large though.

Can you kindly clarify what I need to do since I didn't understand the part where you said "Choose the one at the top and pinch any out of the rest"? Do you mean choosing the leaf at the top and removing all the rest?

Thanks again!

tomato.PNG
 

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Looks like you pinched off the main stem that was growing.

If these suckers sprout then let them grow. They will turn into a growing stem also that will produce tomatoes.

tomato.PNG
 
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Looks like you pinched off the main stem that was growing.

If these suckers sprout then let them grow. They will turn into a growing stem also that will produce tomatoes.

View attachment 91155
Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately, to add insult to injury, I pinched the suckers off as soon as they came out, and now that I realised my mistake, no suckers are coming out anymore.

Is there anything else that I can do, like maybe cutting out some leaves to encourage new growth?

Thanks.
 

YumYum

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I would say that is the end of growth then. I don't know if cutting a limb will generate a sprout or not. I always try to leave at least one sucker at the top that can grow or I can cut off later in case the plant decides to "dead end" on me. That has happened to me a couple times before.

But sometimes they will still sprout a sucker just below ground level or right at it so there is no harm is leaving the plant, but I would hurry and start more tomatoes if I were you. That may be a hybrid thing because my brandywines aren't doing it.
 

Logan

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They will grow somewhere so let it grow, if there's more than one pinch out the lower ones and leave the top one to grow into the leader.
 
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Hi,

A sucker is coming out at ground level from one of the "dead" plants, as YumYum suggested.

Should I cut any of the other leaves to encourage the sucker's growth, or should I just leave the plant as is?

Thanks.
 

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mgmine

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I don't know if you did anything. I put some plants in in two locations and they are not growing. They each have a few tomatoes on them but no real growth.
 
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Mine also seem to have stopped growing (practically all of them) but I'm assuming it could be due to the sweltering heat since I've read somewhere that they stop growing when temperature exceeds x amount. I'm not sure if they will resume with growth when the temperature gets cooler.
 

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