Hard to proscribe a remedy without at least seeing a photo of them and knowing the details of the growing conditions they have.

As a general rule large plants are already heavily stressed when you buy them and even more stressed by transplanting so aren't recommended for purchase. But that all depends on how one defines "big"? Ideal transplant size is considered 6-10" tall and with no fruit on them.

Pale green color usually indicates over-watering, root bound plant, or nutrient deficiency. This stems can be caused by lack of sufficient sunlight or several other factors.

Dave

When I sell plants I charge more for the larger plants in gallon pots. LARGER IS BETTER AS LONG AS PLANTS ARE HEALTHY.

Your problem, Randy, is the condition of the plants. Pale and thin stems are conditions indicating poorly grown plants. You could trench plant soon and possibly they will grow out of the problem. They should look more like my plants (in pots). Those also can be trench planted but holes need to be bigger.

I think it is commonly repeated wisdom that smaller transplants are superior to big ones for the open field and the optimal time to transplant is 5-7 weeks and the assumption is they are strong and vigorous plants. My take on big plants is that since not everyone is with it they want to join in late and need a more mature plant to catch up. But that healthy, older and larger plant will not have the production in the open field that the optimal transplants will. While a 10% difference may not be important or noticeable to a casual buyer, someone in the produce business will make it or be broken by the 10% production on the margin.

The world is a little more complicated though and getting larger plants early on might get a grower a higher market price before the tomato glut hits. So financially there can be reasons to want bigger plants even if the total production/plant takes a hit. Each time a plant is transplanted some root damage is typical, and the larger a plant the more stressful it could be because the plants develop larger and larger lateral root networks that don't fit into a pot any more and get dunked in a transplant hole like a pile of wet noodles.

Add to that using Miracle Gro type soluble fertilizers and/or the container
market, potentially might mitigate some of the traditional root reasons for
planting 5-7 week healthy transplants.

So there are a variety of considerations as I see it. If you need larger plants, though, they take more material/resources to produce and cost more, and have their corresponding price.

The plants described by the OP are typical.

Barrie, those are some of the healthiest potted plants I've seen in a long time. You need to set up down here and sell direct. By the time anything that large gets to the retailers you would probably disown it here. But how Bonnie Plants has restructured the industry to benefit retailers and in the process has so negatively impacted quality conscious end users is another thread ...

Carpe esculentum

PC