posted
Errr... how large a plant, how long ago transplanted, and will we be able to dig the plant up to find out, or do you want it to remain undisturbed?
If we can dig it up, then you might still find traces of burlap around the original root ball, if it was not removed first, and the new growth of the roots themselves might be telling.
posted
Large tomato plant -- transplanted a few days ago, and it can't be touched extensivily by the person wanting to investigate. Posts: 697 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Do you mean a large plant like a tree? Or like a big house plant?
Offhand, I would say: -Root damage, if large roots have been broken off -leaf damage, if you drop it or catch it on something -root "memory" of the other pot (like, if the plant was potbound, when you pull it out to repot it, the roots will be in the shape of the pot) -different dirt among the roots compared to what's around the rest of the pot (ie. "old" looking dirt vs. "new" looking dirt) -if a plant was stunted in growth and suddenly has a ton of new growth, but this could be from other things too, and the oposite could be true if the plant is "stressed" from being transplanted -you find the origional pot it was in -the new pot is clearly bigger than what it was before -there is dirt under someone's fingernails who has an office job -there is dirt everywhere?
Essentially, the longer ago it was transplanted, the less you will be able to tell.
If it's an outside thing that had origionally be bought from a nursery, instructions usually are to pot it in the burlap, so I don't know the various stages of degredation and how long afterwords you'd have to wait until the burlap was gone.
posted
If only a few days have passed, I'd be looking at the soil. As stated before, the soil which came with the plant's roots may differ from the surrounding soil. It may be the richer brown of potting soil, for instance, if the plant was purchased from a nursery.
Also, since it has just been a few days, the earth around the plant has probably not yet fully settled. It might be fairly easy to realize, on close inspection, that this has only recently been planted here.
The soil will be probably be softer and looser around the plant, particularly if it was not watered. There may be a slight depression around the plant showing some settling has occurred, especially if it was watered (as it should have been) or if it has rained. If watered and it has *not* rained recently, the soil surrounding the tomato plant may be damper than the surrounding dirt.
The plant itself may be slightly droopy until the roots begin to take hold in the new spot. I'm not sure how long that would take.
All are subtle tell-tale clues that this plant is a recent addition.
posted
When you said large plant, I figured you meant a tree or something. And then how would you not know it wasn't transplanted. It's hard to miss a tree.
So the obvious line of "because there is a plant there that wasn't there before" isn't going to work? Are you exchanging one plant for another? Or buring something under the plant?
The soil thing is good. Also, plants tend to grow towards light, so one side might be heavier than the other. If someone didn't play attention to that, the fuller side might end up pointing toward the shade. You also might have crushed stems and leaves from handling, which wouldn't nescesary indicate transplanting, but certainly that someone/thing has been messing with the plant.
posted
Oh, there's more info now while I was typing my reply.
Can't touch it? Hmmmmm
I'd go for finding the other pot. Otherwise, things like leaf damage could be from anything and do not prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it was transplanted. Unless you have like a string from a glove or something that then matches gloves of this person.
Can't think of anything that the plant would show except in the roots.
posted
The larger the plant is, the more ground around it you have to move in the transplanting, because the roots will have spread along with the topside growth. There should be signs of moving that much dirt.
Transplanting stresses a plant and there will be definite signs of shock until new roots can grow (because there is almost always root damage).
A transplanted plant needs to be watered well after transplanted, so there should be signs of extra watering as well.
Also, GZ makes a good point about plant growth in relationship to the direction of the light. If you want to set it up so the transplanting will be discovered, have the transplanter forget to align the plant properly for that.
posted
As it turns out, I have investigated something a bit like this. Given your restrictions on messing with the plant, I would take a 1/2" diameter tube about 3 feet long and thrust it about a foot into the soil by the base of the plant, giving it a twist as I withdrew it. Then I'd go several plant diameters away and do it again, into, hopefully, native soil.
The intent would be to end up with 2 soil cores, that you would later extrude and examine to see of there was a difference. A significant difference might be visible, and might not. You might have to examine trace element percentages in soil minerals, etc.
Alternatively, you could use an EM-38 ground conductivity meter ( http://www.geonics.com/em38.html ) to measure ground conductivity on a 3 inch or so grid spacing for an area at least 3 plant diameters on a side, with the plant at the center of the grid. It wouldn't matter if the plant were planted yesterday, or 30 years ago. You could still detect the soil disturbance. This particular gephysical tool has a lot of uses, but is often used by archeologists to map old graves. Works extremely well. Would take about a hour, all told.
Less high-tech, but prehaps also working well, would be to simply take a 1/4 inch diameter steel rod several feet long, and push it into the ground near and around the base of the plant, trying to feel for large differences in resistance to penetration. If your character had to be very inconspicuous in their effort, then I could imagine a cane or walking staff with about 6 inches of steel rod at the tip.
posted
How about the dirt that was removed from the hole? It went somewhere. Personally my favorite suggestion is the leaf growth being away from the light. I have a tree I planted a year ago that still is flat on the side that faces the sun and round on the shade side,really bugs me.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited July 25, 2004).]
posted
Some of this was already mentioned, but I have added some stuff. The first signs of transplant shock would be drooping leaves. And even after a day or two you would notice some yellowing of some of the leaves. Tomato plants are not very hearty, so almost anytime you were to transplant one it would show signs of tampering right away. A transplant would need a good amount of water to help it survive and allow the roots to re-grow into the new soil. Depending upon how large the tomato plant was, there might not be any root damage. The smaller the plant, the less noticeable damage, and vice versa for larger plants. Also, if it were in the blooming or budding stage, it may lose some of the blossoms, from the plant being stressed. The weather would play a big part in this as well. If it is hot and dry, the plant would tend to droop and yellow alot more. If I had to guess, I would say that a tomato plant will show stress from transplanting about 70 -80% of the time, no matter the situation.
On a farm, most plants are "starts". They usually don't plant directly from seed. They plant in a greenhouse first and then plug them into the ground as the tractor moves down the row (at least that is what I have seen). So I guess you could say that all tomato plants are transplants.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Have a little expertise when it comes to Tomato plants.
First, a seed-grown tomato plant will have a growth node just above the soil--a thicker knot of stem that is kind of a connecting point between the plant's stem and root systems.
Second, when the plant is then transplanted from a pot into the soil this growth node is generally buried beneath the soil. So, instead of seeing a growth node at the soil line you would see the stem going directly into the soil.
Third, a plant that was transplanted a LONG time ago, will have developed a NEW growth node at the soil line.
Fourth, any gardener worth his salt ALWAYS transplants tomatoes so that the soil line is FAR above this growth node. So, lets say you have a tomato plant that is twelve inches tall. To better help the plant through the shock of transplant, as well as give it a better chance at life, you are going to bury half of that 12 inch stem beneath the soil line. If you look carefully at all those little hairs on a tomato plant's stem--well those little hairs, as well as any leaf nodes that are buried beneath the soil line, are going to turn into roots. And the more roots a new plant has available to it the better off it will be. After only a few days, those hairs and growth nodes probably wouldn't show any significant conversion to roots. After a week or more then you would probably start seeing such change. That's when your newly tranplanted tomato plant gets over transplant shock and starts putting on new visible growth.
Fifth, a newly transplanted plant may show signs of sunburn on the leaves if it hasn't been properly hardened off.
As far as telling WHO tranplanted it. HMM. Unless you knew the transplanting habits of a certain gardener VERY WELL...
posted
More thoughts--if what you are talking about is tranplanting a plant into the soil from a pot, the all that I've said above applies.
If, however, you are talking about digging up a mature tomato plant from the soil and moving it someplace else--the plant would most likely die.
Tomatoes grow roots generally three times the length of the vines. And tomato vines can get quite long. You don't really see that unless you let them trail on the ground. So if you dig up a mature soil- grown tomato plant you would have to dig VERY DEEP to get enough root for it to survive the tranplant. In this case, the plant would be VERY droopy, the leaves turning yellowish brown and falling off, the still-green leaves would have a pale cast to them, the vines would be listless and bend easily over the top of a tomato cage, or lie flat against the ground. The vines would also be somewhat shriveled. Instead of being plump and full and round in cross-section, the vines would be slimmer, faded in color, with water deprivation wrinkles running the length of the vine so that a cross-section of the vine would be more star-shaped.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited July 26, 2004).]
posted
A tomato might not be the best plant of choice for your transplant. Unless it has to be that for a specific reason, you might want to entertain suggestions for another type of plant.
Dakota might have suggestions, sounds like she is an experienced gardener!
posted
I'll Agree with Hero and Dakota. My plants are about 2 1/2 feet tall right now and quite bushy. Even though they have thick stems, moving them would leave bent and broken stems. I would expect that after 3 days, the shock of transplanting would have either killed the plant, or caused it to wither severely.
With a large enough plant, you might not be able to see anough of the soil underneath to know that it had been moved. Wilting, however, would show real clearly. Especially against the backdrop of the healthy plants.
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