"Paul M. Cook" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Arri London" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>>
>> "Paul M. Cook" wrote:
>>>
>>> While cleaning out my tomato pots and trimming my plants I noticed my
>>> yellow
>>> pear had 2 main branches of 4 that had broken spots. It looked like the
>>> branch had been twisted like a dish rag aka wrung out. The leaves were
>>> still alive but the breaks did not look good. It looked like the plant
>>> had
>>> tried to grow downward against the tomato stakes trying to make them
>>> grow
>>> upwards. The breaks were brownish looking and seemed really week. I
>>> went
>>> ahead and cut them off losing 1/3 of my plant in the process and most of
>>> my
>>> young tomatoes.
>>>
>>> Did I over react? I was thinking those limbs would never be viable and
>>> a
>>> drain on the plant in the end. Plus I was worried about bug
>>> infiltration.
>>> Will it recover? Sure doesn't look good at the moment.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
>> Might have overreacted a bit. When dealing with broken stems of plants,
>> we normally try straightening them out gently and then taping over the
>> weak part to support it. It often (but not always) is enough for that
>> stem to recover and grow normally.
>
> Yeah, I thought about that. Though about making a splint for it. The
> vascular system was damaged but the stalk was not dead. I'll do that next
> time. I'm hoping it is early enough in the season that it won't matter.
> Already the emplt space is filling in with leaves from the other stalks
> but they don;t look like they'll be growing any buds soon.
>
> Paul
>
If it is early enough in the season to make it worthwhile, you can cut a new
edge on the broken piece, put it in water and in about a week it will have
new roots. In my experience, the old tops on new roots are fairly robust
growers once established.
Janet