I thought I'd follow-up to my post last week about some of my tomato plants being attacked by cutworms.
In hindsight I think the problem was a mold that ate away the flesh of the bottom main stem of my tomato plants. Anyway, there was one plant that looked like it was going to die so I ripped it out of the ground and stuck it in a bucket of water overnight. I added a little fish emulsion/kelp to the water. The next day the plant looked very much alive. Since I was going away for a week I couldn't leave it in the water so I dug a hole in the ground about 6 inches, cut off the root ball and in the process broke some of the bottom of the stem, and planted tit in the ground. I dumped the water from the bucket on the ground around the plant.
I have my garden on drip irrigation timer so it got watered every other day. I returned a week later expecting a dead plant but to my surprise it was still alive. It appeared to be wilting though.
I probably should take the small green tomatoes off of it so it doesn't stress it so much, but since I have other plants that are ok, I'm just going to let it go as-is and see what happens.
So yes, it looks like a fairly mature plant (formerly 2 feet tall) can be saved.
Maybe I'll give another update in a month to let you know how it does in the long run.
Thanks to the people here who offered suggestions on what to do. They were valuable.
Rob Zone 5a (Syracuse, NY)