Question on pruning tomato plants

[GardenStateGardner]

I have been watching quite a few different gardeners on youtube. Some say to prune non fruit bearing branches to increase fruit production. What has your experience with this been. Does anyone do this and would you recommend?

 

[Durgan]

I have been watching quite a few different gardeners on youtube. Some say to prune non fruit bearing branches to increase fruit production. What has your experience with this been. Does anyone do this and would you recommend?

I use overhead strings for support and add new strings as required. I seldom prune unless a very crowded condition ensues, which is seldom. Removing suckers has little or no bearing on quantity or quality of production in my experience. Often a growing sucker has better fruit than the main stem. I am also of the opinion that the vegetation is required for producing nutrients for the plant. I only have a total of about 40 plants.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?SMADX 24 May 2015 Tomato Support Strings
Twenty four Support stings were added to the overhead structure. A non slip knot was used at the plant end and a clove hitch for the overhead connection. Other strings will be added as the plant grows. The string is 1/8 inch diameter cotton.

 

[grouie]

Funny that tomatoes cannot stand on their own feet (lol)

 

[zigs]

Depends on the variety.

Some tomatoes are grown as a bush, some are best grown as a cordon

I use the prunings as cuttings to increase the stock of plants

 

[Bootsy]

Durgan is doing a good job with his. It's the way to go if you have the space to do it and the weather for the plants to survive and grow well outside. This also depends on the variety of tomato.

There are two basic forms of tomato. Determinate and indeterminate. Determinate are the type such as bush tomatoes and, quite often, don't need supporting or pruning of side branches and suckers. They tend to limit their own growth.

Indeterminate are the type you usually supported up poles or strings and, given the right conditions, will just continue to grow in length - and have some side shoots/suckers.

As they can continue to grow their good cropping is only limited by the temperature, and amount of food and water they receive. As they can get quite long and heavy they need good support such as Durgan gives them.

Here in the UK it's recommended to have no more than 5 to 7 trusses per plant (trusses are the branches that have the tomatoes on) as the growing season isn't long enough for more.

Commercial growers that grow them in hothouses can grow them up to 20ft high as they give them the right conditions.

As Zigs says, if you take off the suckers (usually recommended to help give vigour to the rest of the plant) you can use them as extra plants. They tend to grow quite easily if potted up. The suckers are the stems that grow from the join between the main stem and the leaf. The tomato bearing stems grow somewhere between the leaf stems.

 

[Corzhens]

This is the first time I've heard of pruning tomato plants. When we have tomatoes in the backyard, my husband is very careful of the branches and leaves because he said tomato plant is fragile and when hurt (broken branch) may not bear fruits anymore. Our last tomato plant reached 5 feet and it had many straw that held for propping up all the big branches particularly those with fruits.

 

[Bootsy]

Pruning is not a normal word to use about tomatoes.

For indeterminates it is usually a simple matter of deciding when to stop the upward growth by cutting off the growing tip from the main stem. Removing the suckers is usually done when they're about 1" long so the are just pulled, sideways, from the stem.

The only other 'pruning' that is usually done is to remove the lower leaves as they gradually die off or to remove them below any fruiting branch that has already had the fruit picked.

For determinates there is usually nothing to do at all.

 

[headfullofbees]

When talking about indeterminates, a lot has to do with light quality and season length.
In the UK light levels are poor and the growing season is short. (Tomatoes are originally sub-tropical)
This means that we best grow ours as single columns, as this encourages some full-size tomatoes to grow and ripen earlier than they normally would, as it means fewer tomatoes on the vine at any given time, with light able to get to the whole of the plant.
If we didn't remove the sideshoots, we'd end up with a sad crop of loads of green, undersized tomatoes.
As far as I'm aware, N. America has far better light levels, and so yours actually grow better as a pseudo-bush type, because some of the plant is shielded from excessive light.
Our members come from all over the World, and it is not a case that one size fits all.

 

[GardenStateGardner]

Thank you for the great information. I think I found the right forum. There is much I need to learn!