How do I stop my tomato plant from getting any taller ??

[hardland]

I ahve a Purple russian tomato plant that appers to be doin OK, had a touch of BER, treated with calcium. The plant is over 6ft tall now. I was doing a pretty good job of dealing with the suckers, now at the top , it seems to have just forked into two main stems and outgrown my cage. Can I just pinch or cut of the top stems so it wont grow any taller?

[Duh_Vinci]

Yes, that would work...

But it's not the end of the season for you, why not letting it grow? Another thing you could usually do (if you know that you would want to top it off) is to let one or two of the lower suckers actually develop into the secondary stem, it too will produce flowers and fruit...

BTW - how productive is it in the hot weather, and does the fruit crack much after the rain?

Regards,
D

[hardland]

Thanks for the info, It's starting to bear some large fruit, I hope the BER is under control.. It's in a 10 gallon container, the battle for me is FL april/May weather. I have my fingers crossed. When it's very hot, my plants are in shade by 3pm, when it raining like the sub tropics can, there under the roof eves. I hope these tomatoes are good, lifting wet 10 gal containers sure is a lot of work...

[hardland]

It's getting so tall it's hard to handle. To confirm; I can just cut the top of the stem off ? This will do no harm to the plant ?

[tomato_girl]

To confirm; I can just cut the top of the stem off ? This will do no harm to the plant ?

It won't do any harm.

[hardland]

Thanks, I suppose doing this will allow all the water, nutrients and energy to be concentrated on the existing plant?

[Duh_Vinci]

Exactly, and expect more "suckers" now =) But this may not be a bad thing, they will grow and will setup the fruit!

Regards,
D