Flowering/Fruiting Clusters not Terminating

[Vlad Jovanovic]

I have some tomato plants that are working on their 5th and 6th set of flowers, fruit has set on the first 3 to 4 levels already...Problem is instead of the cluster terminating with a flower/fruit like they normally do, many of them have decided to just keep on growing. The cluster tips, instead of ending, put out a whole new branch complete with leaves, a new cluster of flowers, some fruit, axial leaf suckers, fruiting stem suckers the whole works...It's like there's a whole new tomato plant where there should be nothing (or just the last dangling little tomato fruit).

I've taken to pinching them off manually, but there's like over a 100 clusters that are like that in various sizes, so I figured I'd ask if anybody knows what's the best way to manually terminate the cluster? (Before I potentially go and repeatedly do something stupid 150 times in a row)...

I've been sometimes leaving just a leaf on the some of the ends I've pinched off, thinking it might help the fruit that is there develop faster, but I've no idea...

And does anybody per chance know what causes this vigorous growth "problem"...

It seems to be mostly just the 'Yellow Pear' tomato plants from Johnny's Seeds' that are doing this...

Any thoughts would be welcome.

[TCLynx]

Interesting.  I've had a tomato plant or two do something similar but not to the extent yours seems to be.  I've no idea about it though so I hope some one with more knowledge on the subject chimes in.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

I have a dwarf tomato variety called Tiny Tim that has been shooting off suckers and growing in every direction. This plant is only supposed to grow 6-12 inches and be bushy but mine are about 18 inches. 1 sucker became almost entirely a new plant next to the parent. They are, however, fruiting nicely with 50+ tomatoes per plant. Could it be possible that certain hybrids under certain conditions just ignore what they have been bred for?

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Yeah TC, I too have seen this before, but it was like one cluster on one plant. And if I recall correctly (which I'm not entirely sure that I do) I think it was a Cherry tom variety, so Jonathan your probably onto something.

I guess I can think of worse problems to have, but I'm a real fascist when it comes to suckers. I really try to keep everything down to one producing branch. I've been going through, pulling both axial leaf suckers and fruiting stem suckers off of the 300+ plants about twice a week. Now that they're setting fruit, I figured I was done pinching off plant parts...but it looks like I'm not. 

Also, this variety seems real inclined towards drastic physiological leaf roll (where the sides of the leaves roll up along the mid-vein and they take up a shape like a taco shell) at first I thought it was some disease or another, but the way in which they curl up shows that it's not. I know Sheri in Arizona planted this variety this year also, I wonder if hers are doing some of these same things?  

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Ok, so after pruning lower leaves all day yesterday, I now see that it's not only the Yellow Pear variety exhibiting quirky 'over the top' growth in somewhat abnormal ways...Just it was most noticeable and prevalent with that variety...

I'm starting to think that maybe in addition to once been said...the kelp-based hormones might be the 'culprit' here...I have know way of knowing this for sure, but that is about the only thing I did (used) differently this time around. 

I got to see a fruiting stem sucker popping out of basically a leaf...that was an entirely new one for me.