Hoping to learn from Bonsai pruning/styling techniques....

[applestar]

Hello Bonsai folks!

If you should wander over to the Tomato Growing Forum, you'll see that I'm growing tomatoes indoors during the winter again. I'm running into pruning issues for which I'm hoping to possibly gain insight from Bonsai styling techniques.

I hope you will indulge me and read on, and let me know if you have any tips or advice on how to proceed. I have an idea in my head, but I can't quite make sense of it.

So, I have yet AGAIN over planted -- and in the extremely limited indoor space, it is imperative that I prune even the dwarf tomatoes to single vine or limited number of branches.

If you have missed the opportunity to nip a sucker in the bud, and the sucker already has miltiple healthy floral trusses and is growing more vigorously than the terminal growth of the main stem, is it OK to terminate the main stem and let the sucker take over as lead?

Does anyone have suggestions for trying to keep the height of the plant low? I'm thinking HOW can the plant be forced to keep producing floral trusses lower down on the plant, limit the sideways expansion AND keep the height down....? Only possibility I can think of is to force side shoots to grow while removing spent or lanky older shoots so it would get bushy but more densely clustered -- I wonder if this is in any way similar to bonsai styling techniques....?

[tomc]

Hello!

If you have missed the opportunity to nip a sucker in the bud, and the sucker already has miltiple healthy floral trusses and is growing more vigorously than the terminal growth of the main stem, is it OK to terminate the main stem and let the sucker take over as lead?

Yes and as long as fruit is not your most urgent consideration, you can even cut leaves to 1/2--1/3 of their surface. (less less leaf is going to result in a lot less fruit).

Does anyone have suggestions for trying to keep the height of the plant low? I'm thinking HOW can the plant be forced to keep producing floral trusses lower down on the plant, limit the sideways expansion AND keep the height down....? Only possibility I can think of is to force side shoots to grow while removing spent or lanky older shoots so it would get bushy but more densely clustered -- I wonder if this is in any way similar to bonsai styling techniques....?

Many bonsai I work at making side branches spread. Your sorta stuck with dueling urges to limit both hight and spread. I'm a lot less sure how to advise.

Save the shortest and weakest branch, prune out the most vigorous, and cross your fingers.

[Gnome]

AS,

I take it that your primary concern is to produce as much fruit in the space allotted. Perhaps it would be more productive to retain somewhat fewer plants that could then be allowed to grow more freely. You could still explore pruning techniques that suit your goals. Do you intend to use indeterminate or determinate plants?

Norm

[applestar]

Gnome, are you saying I'm not being sensible?

(raise your hand if anyone thinks I'm ever sensible )

Seriously, I was just wondering if there is a growth pattern related pruning technique that I wasn't aware of/didn't think of. Thanks for the advice, though. I do realize I'm trying to squeeze a lot in.
I DID cull three plants today.

FYI -- I did get some advice from a tomatophile elsewhere that removing lower suckers then pinching the growing tip will cause the vine to grow multiple strong side shoots at the top that can be trained into umbrella-shaped canopy. This would be like tree-form styling, I think, so I will be exploring that.

The varieties in question are mostly genetic dwarfs and extra-short determinates/semi-determinates, but includes a few extra-early indeterminates and cherries.

[tomc]

Your starting with about as good a gene pool as you can hope for. I'm going to second fewer plants and maybe better trellis' to enhance vase shape trees.

Long ago I saw a horizontal trellis for batchelor buttons and carnations that comes to mind. Sort of a cattle gate...