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.

Give us more info, please!

Susan
 

The soil composition immediately around the plant's roots might also differ from the surrounding earth, too.

Susan
 

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.

Now, as to telling who transplanted it...

Sounds so mysterious.
 

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.

Susan

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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited July 25, 2004).]
 

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...
 

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).]
 

Dakota might have suggestions, sounds like she is an experienced gardener!

Susan
 

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.