What is Going On With This Truss?

[Setec Astronomy]

So I was moving my Brad's Atomic Grape and I saw what I thought was a sucker coming out the back...but it wasn't. It's a truss that then got another flower stem...and then turned into a sucker? Sorry the picture isn't the clearest. I think I actually have a branch like this on my Purple Bumblebee also, but I haven't verified that.

IMG_2470.JPG

[peebee]

That happened to me last year & I posted a pic, was told by the experts that it's not unusual & to just cut it off. Since then I've seen it at least 3 times. Don't know what it's called or why.

[Shule]

I've seen it on my plants at least a couple times.

[Pippin]

Expression of a recessive gene (leafy or similar)? If you save seeds from such individual, you will see the same property in the following generations.

I find this sometimes annoying and often remove the suckers, however, I have understood that there are other linked genes that may be useful, such as jointless (calyx separates easily from fruit) and resistance to a leaf mold trait.

[BunnyFeeder]

Thank you for this thread! I've been going crazy trying to figure out what's happening. None of the pruning guides mention growing tips on trusses...

I'm growing 4x Super Sweet 100 (left side in photo) from the same Burpee seed pack. Each one has 8-9 trusses now and every single one of them has 10-12 tomatoes and a growing tip. The plants seem extremely healthy otherwise. I was under the impression that this variety could produce upwards of 100 tomatoes per truss. I left some of the tips to see if a bunch of fruit would develop. Guess it's time to get the shears out! Next year, I'll make sure not to get all my seeds from the same packet.

tomatoes.jpg

truss-tip-1.jpg

truss-tip-2.jpg

[Toomanymatoes]

Six of my 26 plants have shown this behaviour this year (Amana Orange, Black Krim, Jaune Flamme, Cuore di Bue...can't recall the other 2). I was wondering about it as well as I am a new gardener and have not come across any information on this. I pruned two of them and left the others to grow.

[BunnyFeeder]

26 plants? new gardener? Start big or go home, huh?

This is only my 4th year (1st attempt at hydroponics) and first time I've had these growth tips coming from the trusses. Sun Sugar and New Girl, also in hydro, are perfectly normal.

Finally, got a branching truss as you would expect from a Super Sweet 100 (after 30-odd trusses on 4 different plants):

branched truss.jpg

One of the trusses I pruned came back with 2 new growth tips:

new tips.jpg

[BunnyFeeder]

So it's not just the fruit trusses... Two growth tips growing from the middle of two leaf branches. :/ Some crazy mutants here...

leaf growth.jpg

[Toomanymatoes]

26 plants? new gardener? Start big or go home, huh?

This is only my 4th year (1st attempt at hydroponics) and first time I've had these growth tips coming from the trusses. Sun Sugar and New Girl, also in hydro, are perfectly normal.

Finally, got a branching truss as you would expect from a Super Sweet 100 (after 30-odd trusses on 4 different plants):


branched truss.jpg

One of the trusses I pruned came back with 2 new growth tips:


new tips.jpg

Ok, well, there is a bit of story here I suppose. It wasn't supposed to be 26. It was supposed to be maybe 12. I went a bit overboard when I learned that there are thousands of varieties to choose from. It's a problem I have and it is only going to get worse. It was also too late for me to start much else, like peppers or melons.

[Whwoz]

[/quote]

Ok, well, there is a bit of story here I suppose. It wasn't supposed to be 26. It was supposed to be maybe 12. I went a bit overboard when I learned that there are thousands of varieties to choose from. It's a problem I have and it is only going to get worse. It was also too late for me to start much else, like peppers or melons.
[/quote]

And there are plenty of people here only to happy to feed that problem, but we don't see it as a problem.....

[Amateurinawe]

Hi,

I have a few of different types of plants doing exactly the same thing. Growing further leaf at end of truss and sprouting what looks like suckers along branches at fork points. I have diligently removed true suckers and perhaps been rather zealous in some leaf removal as we have had a few weeks of damp weather and worried about blight. I assumed the plants were trying to thwart me by pushing out more growth to combat my over zealousness. Should I be worried ?

[BunnyFeeder]

I can't speak to other types of plants, but using Pippen's post as a starting point, I did some further digging. The Introduction to this research paper ("Bifurcate Flower Truss") might have some relevant information. Some heavy paraphrasing:

• Tomatoes have main stems that become trusses that become flower stems and then flowers.
• Tomatoes, because they are sympodial, terminate their main stems after flowers, and a new growth becomes the main stem.
• "In tomato, six mutant genes are known to create aberrant inflorescence architectures and/or reduce flower numbers"
  The two that seem relevant to this discussion:
  • falsiflora (Solyc03g118160), an orthologue of LFY, fails to assume floral identify, remaining intermediate between vegetative and reproductive states
  • jointless (Solyc11g010570) produces an FM [floral meristem], but after 3–4 flowers the IM [inflorescence meristem] is converted to a vegetative meristem (VM)

The authors also state, "Truss architecture is extremely plastic and responsive to environmental factors—several studies (reviewed by Gratani, 2014) have reported variations in truss architecture in response to external signals. For example, lower temperatures increase branching and flower number (Calvert, 1957, 1959), and this is enhanced at high irradiances (Hurd and Cooper, 1967)."

For me the lesson is clear: Don't get all my seeds from the same source.