Wind causing plant movement - does this affect yield?

[somegeek]

Question regarding plant movement and yield...

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This year I'm not using cages but I'm using twine hung from my eaves and tomato clips. When it's windy, these plants sway a bit and twist. Does this movement reduce yield? Nothing is being knocked off the plant or damages by this movement. I'm using this method to allow the indeterminates to reach up to the eaves.

These are growing happily at any rate. There is about 1 ft of plant below the surface as I planted them deep. Starters were started in late February indoors.

Appreciate any input.

somegeek

[meshmouse]

Somegeek - nice set-up.

I agree that the wind and twisting could help with polination. Some people subscribe to the 'spank' your tomatoes theory. The thought being that by giving them a good shake or knocking them around a bit, they are encouraged to 'set seed' as their existance is threatened.

To the degree it might have an impact on production, I think it's just as likely the spanking helps with polination, as the wind would.

[GardeningCook]

I would just keep an eye on them if you're ever expecting really strong storms, as that twine won't protect them when they're loaded with fruit. I don't know what you could add as far as added protection in the event of a strong storm, but you may want to think about it beforehand.

[imafan26]

A little movement should strengthen the vines and root systems the same way as trees. As long as the wind is not so strong as to tear things out. You are probably getting more twisting because the wind is hitting the wall and swirling back to the vines. The vines would not rotate as much if you didn't have a solid object behind it.

When you train up a string instead of a cage, you will need to prune out suckers. That does reduce some yield since the suckers would have led to more trusses but with the pruning you will still get a lot of tomatoes and they should be bigger.

[somegeek]

I'm just under 6'6" so reaching up to grab tomatoes won't be an issue.

I'm working to restrict the number of vines per plant to three max.

This plastic twine is pretty sturdy.

My source of inspiration with this method this year is a friend who has a setup with a few 2x6 pillars with a few cables between them at 8' and he secures his tomatoes on plastic twine with clips as well and his yields are impressive.

In the past I trimmed my plants back a bit to keep them from going nuts... this year however I'm encouraging them to go nuts.

Thanks for the replies.