Pruning Philosophy

[adewilliams]

I've approached this years tomatoes with the idea to prune hard. I garden in containers and I hate when they get so out of control that I can barely maneuver past them in late summer. However, I'm rethinking that idea now. Last year, I lost a lot off tomatoes to BER and anthracnose. So, even though I had a lot of plants and tomatoes, I didn't end up with a lot of edible tomatoes. This year I want to maximize my yield, but still have manageable plants. I'd love to hear how other people approach pruning.

[jmsieglaff]

Ask 100 people and you'll probably get 100 slightly to drastically different answers.

For my in-ground indeterminates, I prune and allow 3-4 main stems. For my bucket grown plants, if there were indeterminate I'd prune to 1-2 main stems. For dwarf plants I do not prune them, even in buckets, except in extreme cases where the foliage is so dense I worry about the interior of the plant not getting sufficient airflow.

As far as BER, I don't know that pruning will solve your problem. Even moisture is the key. If you have plants in containers, water them well, and then let them dry out, especially if they wilt and then blast them with water, that is the recipe for BER. You may need to water container plants twice a day depending on plant size and outdoor temperatures. I grow in 5 gallon buckets and it takes downpours in storm to really get into the buckets once the plants get decent sized since most of the rain hits the leaves and drips outside the diameter of the pot. Could also be nutrient issue, but it seems more often it is a water issue.

[StrongPlant]

When I started growing tomatoes I didn't prune at all.It was awful.Tons of foliage and huge plants with little fruit.The seconds year I pruned them but I didn't quite understand tomatoe's physiology,morphology and how to do it properly,still the results were a little better.
Finally,I took up some reading and experience has shown that prunning tomatoes not only increases yield,but has tons of other benefits such as easy accesibility and healthier plants.You should do 1,2,3 or 4 main stem(s) and prune all the suckers from them.Personally I grow all my plants on 1 stem and I think that's the best way,there is a reason why most comercial production is done this way too.
With 1 stem you get to plant more plants/area and ultimately get more yield/area too.Plants will also be vigorous and healthy and have excess energy(because there is only 1 meristem pulling resources on the plant other then the roots and fruit) which means larger,sweater and more uniform tomatoes.Outside,my tomatoes are spaced 40cm(15-16inch) appart and 80-100cm(30-40inch) in rows,in the greenhouse the spacing is a bit more because in there they grow larger foliage.Growing this way also means if a plant gets very sick/broken you can just pull the entire thing withous losing much yield-yet another benefit.

The only downside to prunning is that the fruit sometimes gets exposed to sun,leading to burns(sunscald),but this problem is easily fixed with shading nets,among other things.

[b54red]

I now only grow single stem plants so pruning is critical and must be maintained. I use the string supports so keeping them manageable is a necessity. When I did grow in pots I found that most varieties did better when kept to two stems with the suckers pruned off. However there were some more open foliage varieties that did better with three stems.

Go get a bag of plain cypress mulch or medium sized pine bark and mulch heavily so that the container will hold moisture at a more even level and need slightly less frequent watering. Do not let the pots dry out too much or you will end up with the uneven watering that can really bring on BER. Another terrible downside of letting the pots dry out too much down here in the heat of the South is it will cause massive blossom drop. It can happen in just an hour or two once the plant gets too dry it will drop blooms fast. This will cause far less fruit to set.

Allowing less stems usually will help a higher percent of blooms to set fruit. It seems that when a plant has too many growing tips it sends too much of its energy into feeding those growth tips and not enough into setting fruit. This advice is all dependent on the plants being indeterminate. If they are determinate you don't want to prune too much as it will result in less fruit.

Bill

[StrongPlant]

Originally Posted by b54red

This advice is all dependent on the plants being indeterminate. If they are determinate you don't want to prune too much as it will result in less fruit.

This!
Also,in tomato prunning there is leaf prunning and topping off.Offten in greenhouses after a truss is ripe or picked they prune all the leaves up to that truss.Sometimes I even see all the leaves up to the 2nd truss prunned even if the 2nd is still green.Outside though I'd only prune bottom leaves that start deteriorating to prevent any possible disease from spreading.Topping off is done 1-2 months before the cold weather,and it simply involves cutting the growing tip on the plant,I however don't do it because growing all of them on 1 stem,I don't think just one growing point is going to slow down remaining fruit development noticably,on more stems I'd do it,however.

[oakley]

In my climate, full all day sun and high winds, heavy Spring thunderstorms...i let the
season and the plant decide. Takes my tomatoes a while to get going until the weather
warms. Once they take off i prune as i see a need. Always the bottom growth that touch the soil.

Some feathery leafed ind. i let go to climb and may top off when they hit the 7ft mark.
If i don't do a bit of maintenance pruning, i blink and have to deal with a jungle with
hidden fruit.

I would think down south a jungle is inevitable in high heat and a more protective
location with little or no wind.

I can plant more varieties so overall no decrease in volume/lbs.
Its an individual choice, not a rule or argument. If i had room to spread out my toms
like some do i would have to be selective and grow fewer varieties. The one advantage
to giving lots of room is more isolation if one plant gets infected i has less chance of
spreading to others.

[AKmark]

There is a difference in growing tomatoes for fun and growing tomatoes for maximum production of fruit. For indeterminates, prune to one stem for maximum production of fruit in any given space.

[adewilliams]

Thanks, everyone. This has given me a lot to chew on. I'm definitely going to stick with single stem production this year... If I make it. I think I've got TSWV on all my peppers and now I'm watching my tomatoes. Fingers crossed!

[Gardeneer]

I Believe in pruning to some degree, depending on support method and spacong.
Now , in NC, with a bigger garden , I prune less than when I was growing in PNW in limited space in raised beds.
We, the gardeners, have a role to play and manage the plant as we see fit.
With close to 60 plants , I have a hard time to keeping the things down to size. I pinch off thens f suckers daiy and still my plants win.

I add to what "Strong Plants" said.
There is leaf pruning and side branch pruning. It is a well established practice that leaf branch pruning is a good practice to help provide air flow and help prevent diseases. Fungi and bacteria cannot thrive readily in a well ventilated space. They low stagnation that comes dampness with it. That is a haven for fungi. .

[Spartanburg123]

My main goal is to get about 1.5-2 feet of free space at the bottom of the vine, to make sure nothing can touch the leaves. I prune suckers down low, and at chest level, I let it all go. My plants get pretty dense up near the top, but there is good airflow and the fruit has plenty of shade. I usually allow 2-4 main stems.

[zipcode]

I don't think there's much connection between pruning and BER, never been a problem for me pruning to one stem. Water regularly, or install some automated method. Dry farming is not a good idea at all in containers, never let them wilt even a bit.
There's more work with pruning, that is clear, not just the pruning itself, but mostly the staking, they need attaching regularly, etc.
There pretty much 3 choices:
no pruning, cage them and leave them - probably the least efficient method.
Pruning some, especially early on, and cage them - quite common.
Pruning to 1-3 stems and stake them or use some strings attached to some upper supports, or whatever - most efficient use of space and most work.

For big fruited varieties, 1-2 stems seems optimal. For some smaller ones, also depending on the variety, more stems could be useful and sometimes necessary (like cherrys with a small number of fruit per branch).

[Worth1]

If I pruned like some of you guys did every one of my tomatoes would be sun scalded.
Except for the cherries.
Some varieties I simply cant grow due to this.
With very few exceptions I have very little disease problems.
If one does consistently I wont grow it anymore.
The only thing Black Prince is a Prince of is the plague.
Worth

[Ricky Shaw]

Pruning to 1-3 stems and stake them or use some strings attached to some upper supports, or whatever - most efficient use of space and most work. - zipcode

Supported cages work well with the pruning process for container gardening. They stabilize the pot and then become scaffolding to attach stems. Cloth strips cut from old t shirts work well, 1"x12", they don't cut into the vine, strong and stretch.

I ran a lot of 3 stem in 15gal fabrics last year, plan to drop to more 10gal and 2 stem this year.

[Urbanheirlooms]

I generally prune my plants up to the first truss and sucker them regularly until they start producing ripe tomatoes. I then let them go to do their own thing-mainly due to me not having enough time to keep up with it. If I only had a couple of dozen plants, I would most likely keep them pruned to one stem (I have 350 plants). Even though we don't get extremely high heat during the summer, I over prune some plants and did get sun-scalded tomatoes last year.

[Worth1]

High heat doesn't do it UV radiation does.
I tried one called New Yorker or something like that.
It doesn't like Texas one bit.
Worth