Prune or not...a.k.a. to beat a dead horse

Anthony_Toronto · February 8, 2016

Linda I've grown the same main varieties for most of the last 11 or 12 seasons, and I'm saying I actually got larger and more tomatoes of those specific varieties in the 5 years in which I pruned back to 3 to 6 main stems than I did in the last 5 years when I didn't prune, significantly and noticeably so. Pruning takes some work, but having to put 8 or 9 8-foot bamboo steaks on these unpruned monsters, and having to constantly tie them up takes more!! And I get that people get lots of tomatoes when they don't prune, and I also got lots of tomatoes when I didn't prune, but I got more tomatoes when I did. And maybe that is because of where you are located geographically compared to my location? Anyway for those who are not pruning at all, how many primary/secondary stems do you end up with? I'm not talking about pruning down to 1 or 2 stems (tried that also one year, with acceptable results but not as much foliage as I would have liked overall so more sunburned fruit than I would have liked), but maybe an average of 5 stems per plant, instead of 10.

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February 8, 2016	#11
Anthony_Toronto Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Toronto Posts: 413	Linda I've grown the same main varieties for most of the last 11 or 12 seasons, and I'm saying I actually got larger and more tomatoes of those specific varieties in the 5 years in which I pruned back to 3 to 6 main stems than I did in the last 5 years when I didn't prune, significantly and noticeably so. Pruning takes some work, but having to put 8 or 9 8-foot bamboo steaks on these unpruned monsters, and having to constantly tie them up takes more!! And I get that people get lots of tomatoes when they don't prune, and I also got lots of tomatoes when I didn't prune, but I got more tomatoes when I did. And maybe that is because of where you are located geographically compared to my location? Anyway for those who are not pruning at all, how many primary/secondary stems do you end up with? I'm not talking about pruning down to 1 or 2 stems (tried that also one year, with acceptable results but not as much foliage as I would have liked overall so more sunburned fruit than I would have liked), but maybe an average of 5 stems per plant, instead of 10.