"Would you say grafting back to the original plant where i cut it off would work? "

No I wouldn't. Sorry but that would only stress the mother plant and high odds it wouldn't work anyway. Root it and find some place else to plant it.

Dave

Grafting it won't work, especially if it's been off the plant long enough that you planted it. I assume from what you're saying that you're in a location that is still toward the beginning of the tomato season. So don't worry--if you don't have space to root the clone and grow an additional plant, a big, vigorous indeterminate like Brandywine will easily make up for one lost shoot over the growing season.

I'm concerned that you're going to let it "ramble", though. There aren't many places you can do that without risking increased foliage diseases and pests getting at your fruit. A solid support system is key to success with large indeterminate tomatoes.

You can try but it is highly unlikely, especially if you have little grafting experience (like by asking the question). When tucking tips into cages I sometimes break a side shoot that is growing strong the wrong way. If it is hanging on by a thread, even with professional grafting tape, I don't fare well. If it is kinked, I usually get it back but even that can be a challenge sometimes.

So you've cut it off cleanly, and maybe kept it in water so you think it's worth a shot. After all this time it has likely sealed a lot, so you could try. but hey if you are grafting, why Brandywine, if you have another stronger receptive variety stick it on that plant :-)

But I would just root it if I were you - it won't be much further ahead hypothetically reattached after all the growth, and fall behind what roots could give it. The sucker re-attachment surgery has a tiny chance of success, if that. Once rooted, just stick it somewhere convenient in the Brandywine's or another pot/soil/wherever. Drawing the same resources so not to spend more .... nothing wrong with that, and that is your current plan anyway win-win, I'm sure you could find someplace a little sunny for it. Don't forget a rooted side shoot is much faster to catch up than a seedling.

Cheers

PC

Thanks for the feedback. What I meant by ramble was not prune the shoots. I want as many fruit as I can get. I won't let the leaves touch the ground though. Unless you meant something else.

OK, I thought you meant letting the plants sprawl over the ground without support, which some people do, but I wouldn't personally do it in most places.

Not pruning will produce tons of fruit-bearing branches. More than enough to more than make up for one that you cut off.

Wouldn't planting it in the same pot cause the roots to be too tight and cause stress?

The shoot I cut off has flowers, they just haven't bloomed or even developed yet. The fact that brandywine isn't very productive is why I won't be pruning it and wanted to save the shoot, to get as much as I can

I wouldn't plant it in the same pot, but I got the impression that PupillaCharles was talking about just until roots form, then you move it.

Unless you have space somewhere for another Brandywine plant, though, just give away the cloned plant once it grows roots or compost it/discard the shoot now. It's doubtful that 2 Brandywines crammed into the same pot would actually give you more fruit than 1 plant that has enough room. Tomato plants lose shoots all the time and quickly compensate.

Wouldn't planting it in the same pot cause the roots to be too tight and cause stress?

LOL! Yes it would, and if the pot is too small or saturated with roots you would need to find another place.

Re-attaching would also cause a great deal of stress and almost for sure death in this case. And for what? To get the new lateral shoot back in business putting the demands on the existing root system to supply it anyway. Yet we routinely tell people to trench and bury plants to produce more roots. The difference to me is not much. Either the mother plant will crowd it out or it will make it. If it makes it, that means there is sufficient free soil mix to grow in at this time and you'll get lucky and it will have a cluster.

There's no free lunch but if you are unable to get a new home for it, and you are unable to reattach it because that is hard to impossible, I am being exhaustive by telling you not to forget the other option that actually could work. It is a viable option only if the main plant has not filled the pot with healthy roots. If that has happened the shoot is history. Saving the flowers ... no way that's going to happen, not with a huge tomato like Brandywine on a severed lateral shoot. Not gonna happen, unfortunately. I understand the pain. Kills me every time I break a shoot with flowers

Cheers

PC

Edit: see GBs reply above after submitting. I better emphasize, get another pot yes 100% behind that idea, but actually I was suggesting it if all other options are exhausted and the cutting was too sentimental to compost. We don't know how robust a root system OP has. It could be small and underdeveloped. If it is small, and all other options are out, Hail Mary. I did it with my Sungold and it worked. Crappy very leggy plant but I got a few extremely tasty fruits before I pulled it when space became an issue.

The issue with Brandywine isn't so much flower production as pollination and fruit set. There are a couple of things: a lot of plants that have the same shape blossoms as Brandywine are also late setters and not as productive. Also, many of the tomatoes famed for the most intense flavor in good years have a very high foliage to fruit ratio, which the plant is probably genetically programmed to produce.

One shoot that is lost to pruning or accident isn't going to make too much of a difference. The plant will just make it up elsewhere.

If you want to try to boost production, get a cheap sonic toothbrush and "sonicate" the flowers on your plant. This mimics the action of sonicating pollinators like bumblebees and other native bees and is demonstrated to boost fruit set. Also, if you get any serious heat waves, give the plant a little filtered shade during the hottest part of the day.

But mostly, you're dealing with genetic factors which aren't so much limitations as the things that make the fruit you do get such an extraordinary accumulator of sugars, acids, and other flavor-intensifying compounds when it's grown in conditions it likes.

Thanks for the feedback. I decided to prunem them because of this article http://gardeningstories.com/gardening-tips/why-to-prune-tomatoes/ 

I'll be using m!y toothbrush to attempt fruit set, although my area should have plenty of butterflies and bees to do that.

That article has lots of misconceptions in it. It really depends on your growing conditions and goals. No article should be telling everyone to prune--that's an individual decision based on individual factors. Here's an opposing view which is, however, more thoughtful than the article in your link. https://www.thespruce.com/dont-prune-tomato-plants-2539820

shijitake: my area should have plenty of butterflies and bees to do that.

Butterflies are not tomato pollinators. Neither are non-sonicating bees like honeybees. Both will generally be totally uninterested in your tomato flowers anyway, as they produce no nectar.

Only bees that buzz pollinate, like bumblebees and other large native bees, are effective pollinators of tomato.

Tomato flowers are self-fertile and usually pollinate themselves, but buzz pollinators can increase the % of fruit that sets because their buzzing loosens and vibrates the pollen into a cloud that has a better chance of reaching the stigma.

This video has footage of the bumblebees buzz pollinating as well as a close-up slow-mo of what happens when you hold something that vibrates similarly (in your case, a sonic toothbrush and in the video, a tuning fork) against a flower with the kind of anthers that tomatoes and related plants have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZrTndD1H10

Thanks, gorbelly. I didn't know about all that. I did have tomatoes with similar flowers as brandywine and it was somehow pollinated. I'll still use my toothbrush on them though.

s for pruning it doesn't make sense to me either how you'll get more from pruning, but the article I posted has me convinced that the pruned plant is more vigorous and has larger fruit. They seem to have the same amount except the pruned one has them all in its one stem while the other has more on the bottom and less on top. Probably because the plant can't send as much energy up so high and on two stems.

Also I noticed that my pruned tomato bloomed earlier than my non pruned, which was working hard to grow two stems. Lastly I grew sungolds in the previous years and noticed when I didn't prune it the fruits were abundant but smaller. I don't remember if I got any less from the pruned one but it sure did have larger fruits. For a plant that takes 90 days for the fruit to ripen they better be damn huge! I've already pruned them and will just plant the clones. Thanks again for the input!

shijitake: I did have tomatoes with similar flowers as brandywine and it was somehow pollinated. I'll still use my toothbrush on them though.

Tomato plants usually pollinate fine on their own, through the help of wind, etc. But they pollinate better if they are sonicated. When you have a notoriously stingy variety like Brandywine or if you're dealing with challenging conditions like too much heat, too much humidity/rain, etc., you can counteract some of the hindrances to pollination by giving the flowers a buzz. It's not necessary. Just better.

shijitake: the article I posted has me convinced that the pruned plant is more vigorous and has larger fruit

An unpruned plant may bloom later because it takes more time to develop a bigger, better root system. But that means more fruit overall at the end of the season, because it's a bigger, more vigorous plant with more flower trusses.

For a commercial grower, pruning can increase marketable yield, at the expense of overall weight of yield. They only want to sell tomatoes, which have to meet certain criteria having to do with size, uniformity of size, lack of damage during harvesting methods, less loss from overlooking ripening fruits because they can't see them, and other factors that a home gardener may not really have to take into consideration. A home gardener may just want the most weight in tomatoes they can get and may not care whether they're all uniform or able to be picked efficiently.

If you overcrowd plants because you want to fit in more varieties or because you have a lot of plants and want to prune to one stem and string them up for easy fruit retrieval/harvest, that's one thing. If you're a home gardener who wants to harvest the most mass of tomatoes possible out of your plants, that's another.

Also, if you live somewhere with huge foliage disease pressures, you're probably going to get more fruit if increased airflow from pruning keeps your plants alive longer than not pruning plants.

If you grow in containers, especially smaller containers, you may want to prune, as the limited space for the roots can only support so much plant.

And if you live somewhere with a short season, you may want to prune to get the plants to produce fewer fruit early instead of risking getting even fewer fruit because the cold or heat comes before the plants give you much fruit.

The bottom line is: the leaves of plants are similar to solar panels that collect the energy needed for the "factories", i.e., the plant's metabolism and its fruiting structures, to manufacture the dry matter and compounds that make up what we like to eat. If you compromise the number and area of the solar panels, you're reducing the energy at the plant's disposal. If you are growing in conditions that permit it, you'd ideally leave the plant alone to fulfill its genetically determined solar-panel-to-factory ratio. There's a reason why so many of the best tasting tomatoes have huge leaf:fruit ratios. However, there may be other considerations and limitations that change the calculation, as I've tried to explain above.

This argument has been hashed over time and time again not just here but pretty much anyplace where people discuss tomatoes. Neither pruning nor not pruning are wrong; it depends, once again, on your conditions and goals. And the reason I object to the article you mention is because it's too absolute and doesn't explain reasons why one might prune or not prune.

So if YOU have determined through your experience that pruning works better for you, then that's great. Many great gardeners choose to prune. Many great gardeners choose not to prune.

But don't let that article, which is a bad article, convince you.

Relax. The only reason that article convinced me is because of the picture posted on it and the results I had. Not so much what the article said. I am in a short growing season and they are in containers, which coincides with some points you made. They'll take 90 days to ripen, so of course I'd prefer them to bloom faster.

Also no need to explain the function of leaves, everyone knows they photosynthesize for energy, plus I took plant science in college. Which is why I thought of letting the shoots grow and cut off the flowers so the focus will be on the ones on the main stem. I am very much looking forward to my results. If you are interested I'll update!

shijitake: Which is why I thought of letting the shoots grow and cut off the flowers so the focus will be on the ones on the main stem.

Personally, I would never cut off the flowers on a "hard setter" like Brandywine.

In plants that set a lot of fruit, I can see culling some of the later fruit to set on a truss in order to increase the size and quality of the remaining fruits. But on a plant that is a poor setter, I would want to take every opportunity for a possible fruit.

Whether or not to prune/cull depends a lot on variety as well. Pruning/culling a Big Beef is an entirely different question than pruning a Brandywine.

Also, if you're still in NJ, your growing season is plenty long enough for Brandywine.

I do want as much fruit as I can but that is why I'm cutting the shoots to make clones and planting them. NJ growing season isnt long enough for me. Especially since my brandywines are still small and only just bloomed. I won't get fruit until september :/

It's unlikely your clones will mature quickly enough to give you much fruit. Using clones is a few weeks jump on starting from seed, but the plants still have to develop root systems and vegetative growth before they start blooming.

I grew up in NJ and live outside Philly now. We used to grow Brandywines when I was a kid. If your plant is blooming right now, you'll have fruit in August at latest.

You're right about the clones but if they give me at least one fruit I'd be happy. Besides like I said before I wanted faster blooming and since they're in a pot I'll need to prune them because they can't grow larger roots. August still isn't early enough because then I'll probably have only another month or two before frost/complications from too much rain.

Where in NJ are you located?

Near new Bbrunswick

I lived there one year. The weather there is really not any different from the weather here. Maybe a few degrees difference, a few fewer days of growing season--literally less than a week difference.

The entire month of September is terrific tomato weather from about NYC all the way down the East Coast.

The last two years, we haven't gotten frost until the very end of October or, last year, until well into November.

There's a reason why NJ has a reputation for being a great place to grow tomatoes. It's not just NJ--it just happens that NJ is one of the most heavily agricultural states in a region that is basically considered ideal for growing tomatoes and one of the few regions where one can grow late varieties like Brandywine because we have a long enough growing season but not one in which we have to contend with many days of extreme heat that shuts down production or damages plants.

When I was younger and growing up in NJ, July, August, and September were prime tomato month. That's when they were in the full flush of production and abundant at markets. Back then, home gardeners didn't push season extension so much, and it was considered bragging rights to have any ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July--and those were the early varieties.

Getting tomatoes like Brandywine by late July or early August was completely normal.

Do what you consider best, and this is my last word on this, but I just don't want you to lose production making unnecessary interventions with your plants because you underestimate the growing season.

No need to tell me about NJ, lol I live here. September does have great weather but the there's less sun and I've noticed my tomatoes are smaller during this month. Also October frost come as at such random times. Im not I underestimating the length of the season as I am just wanting to have lots of ripened tomatoes. Of cousre the season feels short considering brandywine takes so long to ripen. Also, they are not in their final pots so they may take even longer to grow/ripen tomatoes because when I transplant them they will take time to grow roots.

Go for it Shijitake!

I follow advise of Dr. Adam Montri, MSU, who recommends allowing 2 stems on heirloom varieties. Adam is a Penn State graduate so knows our area too.

As you allow few lateral branches to envelop on the severed plant you may want to provide a little extra support until the branches develop a stronger juncture. Younger lateral branches are easier to snap off which you probably already know if you are removing them.

Actually I decided to let the next shoot become a second branch. I'll let my plants grow through two stems. The shoots I cut off were low on the plant and I was fgoing to bury them deep anyway and the shoots would've been under soil. Thanks for the input

I have a brandywine growing! The first flower did not seem to set because its not growing, the second one is! I think its because I sonicated the second one and it was too late for the first one when I did. Thanks for reminding me about that method. I'm so excited!