Hmmm its still partially attached, you could wrap the split part together and let it heal, like a graft, hmm if your worried about fungus or rotting your could let the split wound dry out and heal as long as it doesn't spit anymore.

I'd bandage the split part under the leaf, and leave the top part of the split, keeping the split tight enough to heal but at the same time allowing air flow to prevent fungus and rotting.

Bau

Just support it well. Plant shouldn't lose a beat.

I just read I can wrap it with parafilm or plastic wrap like grafting tape but couldn't that cause mold issues? I feel like letting it scab over would be worse though slowing down water transfer. Thanks for such fast responses guys, I thought it was over.

Yes it can, especially if the plastic wrap gets wet.

I wrapped mine, with plastic, and kept the plastic dry and mine healed.

It could. Personally, I'd support it well and just let it heal over while exposed to the air. BUT if it's impossible to support in way that would prevent the split from getting bigger, i.e., you can't support it well enough to immobilize that part, I'd wrap it with something and risk the mold.

You don't have to wrap the split itself, you can wrap those branches above the split.

Just reread your first post bau the man, I missed what you said about letting it dry.

I think I'm going to wrap it right now. Do you think misting before with a soap/tea tree oil antifungal would be good preventative measures or possibly harmful? What about unwrapping every few days or so?

I've never actually sprayed my tomatos with any antifungal sprey so I'm not sure, i probably should though, i cant imagine it would hurt, but I'd ask gorbelly.

Dont let rain get to the split

Your tomatoes look great though. :D.

I had to for my green beans early on but it seemed to work with no issues now. It's just a homemade spray of tto/baking soda/veg oil/baby soap

Thanks this was the only other plant besides my cherry that didn't get horrible ber and now this happens to it. I've lost 12 tomatoes on my large plant all to ber.

Don't keep unwrapping and rewrapping if you decide to wrap it. If you decide to wrap it, doing it now while the split is still fresh instead of waiting until it dries out is better.

I'm not sure how much good it will do, but it won't hurt to spritz a little diluted bleach spray on it, let the spray dry, then wrap it. I would personally stay away from oils and soaps for this purpose.

Okay sounds good, no oil spray, keep it wrapped and as dry as possible. Off to try to fix it!

I once knew a guy that had BER, measured the pH in his soil, turned out his soil was too alkaline for the tomato plants, which caused BER, he corrected the soil using super diluted acetic acid, from vinegar, regularly adding it to the water he water the plant with, because tap water is alkaline.

His BER disappeared..

I have it pinned to soil ph as well because of the rain water so lime has been added. Hopefully it will clear it up

Lol yeah wrapping and unwrapping would never happen. That wasn't so easy to get in there.

Got it done though so hopefully it will heal. I pulled the plastic wrap as tight as I could and used clear tape to hold it. How long should I let it heal before I take it off?

Top view, I had to break a stake and rest it on a tomato cage to hold it up.

Side view

bau the man: I once knew a guy that had BER, measured the pH in his soil, turned out his soil was too alkaline for the tomato plants, which caused BER, he corrected the soil using super diluted acetic acid, from vinegar, regularly adding it to the water he water the plant with, because tap water is alkaline.

His BER disappeared..

BER has many different possible causes.

BER very often just goes away on its own with no intervention as it's often caused by unstable weather early in the season after plant-out or by the fact that young plants have underdeveloped root systems, a condition that obviously corrects itself as they grow and get established, or transient stressful conditions (heat wave, drought) that pass. A lot of people on the Internet claim that [home remedy x] fixed their BER and everyone should do it! but what most likely happened is that what was causing the BER stopped on its own. This is complicated by the fact that what caused the BER happened very early in the fruit development, way before the signs are visible on the tomato, so a lot of the time, the problem has already passed by the time the gardener has implemented his or her "remedy".

This isn't to say that pH can't be the problem. Checking pH is a good idea--pouring vinegar on soil without checking pH is terrible idea, though. Other potential causes like watering/rain, amount of nitrogen, etc. and what varieties are being grown (some are just naturally very prone to BER) also need to be addressed.

IF there's a soil pH problem and IF the problem is that the soil is too alkaline as opposed to too acidic, vinegar will be a very, very short-term fix--sometimes only "fixing" the problem for hours. Soil pH problems require time to fix properly, so while vinegar might help as a short-term component of an overall strategy for plants that are very distressed by alkaline soil, it's not really a "solution".

Agree with dan re: wrapping. I was thinking something much less extreme to stabilize it mostly to keep the split from continuing to lengthen if the plant experiences more wind or other physical stresses. Also I thought you were considering using something like grafting tape or parafilm, which you don't pile on so thickly and which has some stretch to it. Leaving it alone is preferable to wrapping it with tons of plastic wrap like that, IMO.

The stem is being squeezed pretty good on one side in a sense with yarn because of having to tie it up to prop the split, this is okay right? Towards the end it does start spliting off more to one side and isn't so evenly split.

Plastic wrap was all I had on hand and read I could use it as an alternative but it doesn't stretch well and ended up being a pain resulting in that mess. I'm going to buy graphing tape tomorrow.

My main concern with unwrapping it and leaving it is the snap is a lot worse then that picture leads on because it's propped. Its really only hanging on by maybe a half centimeter give or take a few mm.

[B]Is that really enough stem to support 7+ tomatoes if it scabs over?[/B] Also most of the stem is attached to the large sucker and not the main growing stem.

Here's zoomed in picture where I highlighted the very end of the split, it stops at the horizontal line. It actually goes beyond where I marked it was hard to draw in zoom.

The split curvs off drantically to the left as ,especially when it was hanging

So I'm conflicted I'm inexperienced but my gut is telling me to rewrap the stem with graphing tape in hopes it reattach and heal. Its only a determinate so it really only has to hold out for another month-7weeks.

Your branch/plant could've lived a normal life without doing anything, provide the separation did not get bigger.

On wrapping , I would have used some fabric / cloth instead of plastic so the branches could breath freely.

Sey

How about gauze? I was thinking of using it but thought it might stay too wet

Sure, gauze is even better but expensive. They also have special wraps for injured trees etc. But probably you wont need to go to a great extent in this case. JMO

Sey

I will say after wraping this again I can't say it helps hold it any better, maybe if it's windy to stop wobble.

Here's the gauze wrap, it's not pretty but it's hard to maneuver in there. I left it half a wrap open so I could keep an eye on the split. I also tied it off to the stake which should keep it stable.

I wouldn't use gauze. The weave in gauze has very weak stretch because of its looseness so won't offer much support. If you wrap it tightly enough to do the job you need it to do there, it will be not stretchy at all and very constricting, as there is no spandex or other synthetic stretch fibers in gauze.

As the plant is determinate, I'm tempted to say just leave it and stop messing with it, even if the situation is not ideal. If you must do something, strips of an old t-shirt will work better than gauze. Don't wrap it ultra thick if you need rigidity in the wrapping. That makes for poor support over time, and it will be like having a giant sponge that loves to soak up and retain water wrapped around your stem. Use a takeout chopstick or something as a splint instead and tie the stem only enough to keep the split from traveling further.

A more mature stem like that, split along the vertical axis, may or may not heal back together strongly enough to have the support removed. I've never tried to make it happen, instead concentrating on rigging support to keep the split from continuing, and plants have gone one to produce fine on the upstream vines.

It's not going to heal. Forget about that. Once it's been split for a few hours, the wound is dried out. It is sensible to try to keep it from splitting further, however. The way I'd do that is just with a paper-coated wire tie or two, which you get in supermarket produce departments. Just thread that above and around the split, and arrange it so that the stems can't pull apart anymore. Might be smart to put some gauze under it to prevent it from cutting into the stem.

Haha okay I'll go cut off the gauze and just splint it up with one tie in a little bit. Thanks for all the help guys, my plant would be much worse off without you!

Probably too late now given all that has already been done but 99% of the time stem breaks dry out and scab over just fine when they are left alone. The more you mess with it, the more you try to fix it, the more damage you do.

Dave

Ah, a splint. That's the idea. Don't waste a lot of time on it, but a little protection can't hurt.