Split trunks

High,

I have several really big plants (10' tall or so, some are six, eight feet) They are either Maui Wowie or Afghan Kush/Maui cross.

A few of the plants split into thirds or quarters, peeled right down the trunk. But the branches, now laying across tomato plants, on the ground, all over the damn place, are thriving. They have sent up more "tops" which are flowering. There are flowers everywhere. So I'm lucky in that regard, that the splitting didn't hurt the plants.

But what causes it? We do get wind here but the plants are in a treed back yard and the wind isn't bad unless in an open area.

I'm just curious.

As it turns out, as I said, they may be producing more because of the splitting... I have heard a yield increasing trick of tying the plants top to a block or tree or something, gradually getting it to arc over, so it makes more shoots and tops. A few of mine did it on their own.

I will have to return to post a photo. Something screwy...

It *finally* let me post the picture.

Moonwalk said:

It *finally* let me post the picture.

Click to expand...

late topping without 'caging' the plant or tying the branches to each other...is the cause of top trunk splitting

You are fortunate it's still alive,I had one do that last year it didn't make it.

I didn't top it late, I did some minor pinching very early to increase forks in the main trunk, they were like knee high then. Two or three split, the rest are trees.

Moonwalk said:

It *finally* let me post the picture.

Click to expand...

I had one do that. It was 3 or 4 ft tall and bushy. I had already tied it down in four directions to help bush it out and we had a freak rain/hailstorm in July that poured HARD for 10-20mins. A friend and I carefully picked up the branches and tied up the the stalk real tight and she healed up.

Same thing happened to me this year, I usually train them so they grow horizontally. Decided to let them grow like Christmas trees this year, what a terrible idea. I used lots of rope and zip ties to fix the damage after a wind storm we had.

afghan kush has done it to me more so then others. huge plants do it lol

I've had 5 plants split this year. Twine and tape fix things up like new.

Twine and tape wouldn't hold ten foot trees with eight foot branches and 2.5" diameter trunks. If they were smaller, I might could have. But as I said, all the pieces survived, they continue to flower and are green and very bushy... I guess no harm done. Wind got them apparently.

I used rope and zip ties to fix my 8ft plant with 3" stalk. Used the trees around me as anchors.

Damn that's sad