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plkelly
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Pruning tomatoes

Found a great video regarding pruning indeterminate tomatoes and thought I'd share:

[url]https://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid4130888001?bctid=1906795946[/url]

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stella1751
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Wow. That was interesting! Thanks for sharing.

I leave my suckers on. I think that allowing them to produce increases my yield per square foot, using tomato cages instead of stakes for support. Does anyone else agree? Disagree?

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rainbowgardener
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I think there's no one simple answer to that question. It depends on what you want and what kind of garden you have.

In addition to being a costly operation, staking and pruning practices reduce the total yield per plant because laterals and potential flower clusters are removed. When plants are staked, the vines are usually pruned to two main stems. This is done by pinching out new shoots or suckers as they appear in the leaf axils, up to about the third flower cluster. ... Staked tomatoes can be planted closer together, about 18 to 24 inches apart. This permits more plants to be grown in a given area, thus increasing total yield per acre. https://www.public.iastate.edu/~taber/Extension/tomatoes/tomatoes.html#anchor2683175

To maximize your tomato yield, you must manage the plant’s growth. [I.e. PRUNE] https://www.growingtomatoes.info/

However, here is an article where they did an actual experiment directly comparing pruned vs unpruned:
Summary: For both cultivars, the greatest marketable yield came from unpruned plants. If only the maximum large No. 1 fruit is considered, plants with 2 or 3 branches[ I.e. pruned!] produced the greatest yield for both cultivars. For both cultivars, unpruned plants produced a greater total fruit count, and smaller average fruit weight, than plants with four branches Pruning affected fruit number and size to a greater extent for Mountain Spring than for Florida 91. [two different cultivars they tested].
https://www.hort.purdue.edu/fruitveg/rep_pres/2002prior/01tomprun.pdf

So their result was what I have always heard and part of why I do pinch out suckers, you may get fewer tomatoes, but they will be larger.

But also note as in the first quote, the Purdue study was looking at number and weight of fruit PER PLANT, NOT per acre (or square foot). Again had they allowed for closer spacing of pruned vines, they might have found more production per acre for the pruned ones.

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stella1751
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After posting my reply, I had to go out and look at my tomatoes :lol: I had just pruned them that morning, and I wanted to look at the results of earlier prunings. Because I left the suckers on, I have new tomatoes starting at the bottoms of my plants. Four of five plants are still producing heavily up to the top (guesing 4' to 4.5' today), as with the fellow's in the video, but they are also giving me new tomatoes at the bottom. Of course, there's always that fifth one to ponder, the one in the middle of a 5.5' x 5' raised bed, that is producing, but only lightly.

Re: size, I don't know. I've never grown Lemon Boys before. It should be a medium slicer, but I do have a few coming along that would qualify as large. I think it's a matter of what the soil can handle. I have excellent soil, soil with a texture and a virginity that is highly receptive to amendments.

I am worried, though, that I am pushing them too hard with the type of pruning I do; there was some fresh slightly lavender growth this morning. I hope my calcium amendments arrive soon!

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rainbowgardener
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Now I'm confused... you are letting all the suckers grow out AND you are pruning? Those don't usually go together. What are you pruning?

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stella1751
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The exact opposite of what the fellow in the video did. An old gardener, a friend of mine, taught me to remove any branches that will not produce and are not required for support. I love it, but it does take a lot to keep the plant fed and producing. I did get 250 tomatoes off an Early Girl a few years back with this system.

That's not an exaggeration, either. I made myself pick even dozens each time I picked, and I made a hatch mark on the fridge. There were 20 hatch marks the night of the big freeze. (I ran out and snagged a bunch of smaller green ones to make it an even 250 :lol: )

I think I have a photo of that tomato bed. Let me check. Yes. I hope this link still works:

[img]https://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy292/mitbah/2007Garden001-1.jpg[/img]

Naturally, they're between prunings in this shot, so you can't see the tomatoes. The ones out front are yellow pears. I didn't count my yield from those; it was well into the hundreds on each plant, 5-gallon pail after 5-gallon pail. I will never grow yellow pears again. I got very tired of picking them.

Admittedly, I had planted the Early Girl earlier than I did this year's Lemon Boys, setting her out in mid-April. She was in the bed right behind my house, right in front of the dryer vent. One night, after covering these tomatoes, I ran the dryer empty during the worst of the temperature drop. I think that may have saved the lot!

Because the Lemon Boys were just pruned, I'll get photos of them once the sun hits them. I checked, and that's an hour, at least, away. The sun is rising later and later, BTW, in case no one else noticed :cry:

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stella1751
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I'm back. Here are my Lemon Boys, a day after being pruned the way I was taught by Lucille. She's now in her 80's and has been a wonderful source of old-style gardening secrets for me!

[img]https://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy292/mitbah/40600010-1.jpg[/img]

I prefer this method to sucker pruning. If the plant can sustain this level of production and we make it to October 1 before we get our first hard frost, I believe I will get from 300 to 400 tomatoes (maybe more) from 25 square feet. Had I been on the ball and planted them six weeks earlier, the yield would have been considerably higher :cry:

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gixxerific
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That is a great idea Stella. It's funny I always use cages and usually pick off the suckers. I also try to leave certain plants alone, though I always forget which ones I pruned and which ones I didn't so basically they all get suckered but in differing turns. Next year I will try to keep a diary of what goes in and what I did to it.

I have a different plant for next year, it will be easier for me to keep track of, I will write down which rows get suckered which don't and you gave me the idea of not trimming suckers but the other parts. Hopefully I can stick to it, I do get trim crazy at times.

Thanks for the idea it's great to learn new things and spread my experiences as well. :D

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stella1751
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Gixxerific wrote
Thanks for the idea it's great to learn new things and spread my experiences as well.
Ditto that. Now Rainbowgardener has me looking at my tomato size. Because they haven't ripened yet, I can't be certain, but I do think there is an interesting variance in size, from some whoppers that are considerably larger than expected to several small ones that might be done growing. I will be thinking about this thread over the winter and maybe doing an experiment of my own :lol:

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gixxerific
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stella1751 wrote:Gixxerific wrote
Thanks for the idea it's great to learn new things and spread my experiences as well.
Ditto that. Now Rainbowgardener has me looking at my tomato size. Because they haven't ripened yet, I can't be certain, but I do think there is an interesting variance in size, from some whoppers that are considerably larger than expected to several small ones that might be done growing. I will be thinking about this thread over the winter and maybe doing an experiment of my own :lol:
Tom's are weird, heck this season has been weird. I have some plants ready to go out and one plant that has only produced 1 red tomato (probably the best so far), but it looks much healthier than the others. I haven't touched this at all I don't think :?



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