Pruning Tomatoes!

I've always been unconcerned about how close I plant tomatoes, pruning the plants, and other commonly held beliefs about the "right way" to grow tomatoes. I've always planted with as little as ten inches between plants and believed that more branches and suckers means more blooms and more fruit. I've never worried about fungus problems from dense foliage due to my dry, breezy; climate.

I know I don't grow tomatoes the "right" way, but it has worked well for me. I'm wondering if some of the methods others use may improve my tomato production from good to great.

The following questions are asked in hopes gardeners who grow vertically on cages, trellis, or stakes will answer. I may be wrong, but I believe the pruning practices may not be as applicable to sprawling plants.

How do you space your tomato plants and why?

Do you space them for root space, plant space, or aeration?

How do you prune your tomato plants and why?

Do you remove all suckers and why?

Do you remove leaves from branches and why?

When do you remove the lower branches to prevent ground contact and why?

Do you top prune your plants and why?

How do you determine when to top prune your plants?

Do you believe any of the above practices improve the production of fruit and why?

Ted

[b54red]

I prune for aeration and to allow the plants to dry more quickly in our very high humidity. I grow my tomatoes on a trellis and try to limit the number of stems and remove almost all suckers. The result has been higher production and plants that live longer. Some varieties produce better with fairly heavy pruning and others seem to do fine without it but are still more susceptible to diseases down here. It is a pain to have to go out every few days and remover suckers but I learned the hard way that if I didn't I would end up with a tangle of diseased plants that died prematurely. It is also much easier to tie up a limited number of stems on a trellis.

[French-Connection]

There are different varieties of Tomatoes which require different pruning. Indeterminate plants need all shoots and suckers taken off as soon as possible, and are better grown as upright as possible, about 18" spacing produces the best results yeald wise. Its basically about the leaves fighting each other for light, so the less shade the better,even from other plants, also air circulation is important, which helps prevent disease.
They must be grown on a single support for the best results.
leaves are usually removed weekly to just by the ripening fruit. You stop the head of the plant about a month before the end of the season.

Determinate plants (bush style) which are good for short season growing, are more of less left to their own devices, as all the fruit will mature over a short period, so you are not after a long term crop, and are less worried about disease. Although spacing each plant to allow a good spread of growth is impotant if you have the room. The problem with supporting determinate plants is that on single support they would flop all over the place, so that is why cages are brilliant for supporting them, you are not after record size trusses or really long term crops, so competing for light is not so important. You have no real need to stop the head of the plant, although some people do, and remove leaves if you see any damage on them, or to have a bit of circulation at the base of the plants. I would also remove the lower suckers/shoots.


Obviously everyone has their own way of growing which works for them, I have just outlined a few basics as to how I see it from this side of the pond (France) .
I am sure you will get better/different advice related to your side of the pond.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by French-Connection

Indeterminate plants need all shoots and suckers taken off as soon as possible

Obviously everyone has their own way of growing which works for them, I have just outlined a few basics as to how I see it from this side of the pond (France) .
I am sure you will get better/different advice related to your side of the pond.

I'm glad you said that, because I don't prune indeterminates at all.

[French-Connection]

I did prune about 5000 plants a week, greenhouse grown tomatoes. We were of course after the biggest yields. Unfortunatly it has left me with a disease called 'shootitis' which means i cannot pass a tomato plant without checking it and removing all the tiny shoots, apparently the only cure is to grow determinate plants, so I am trying to wean myself off Indeterminate plants.

[PaulF]

Question #1: I give my plants at least four feet between seedlings in the spring so that at full growth I can walk between the plants to gather fruit.

Question #2: Plant space and air movement.

All other questions: I do not prune.

[Marko]

Pruning and removing lower leaves is a popular way to grow tomatoes here in Europe, like FC said.
I tried both - pruning and not pruning. I had the best results with unpruned tomatoes one meter apart on a simple treliss. I didn't notice any difference disease-wise between pruned and unpruned plants.
And it's not true that pruned tomatoes yield heavier fruits, mine this past season were HUGE and all were unpruned!

[b54red]

I doubt I would do much pruning if I lived somewhere with a short season or if I had low humidity most of the season. Since our season can be as long as 9 months the amount of foliage and the size of the plants can become a real problem.
I have grown the same varieties side by side and compared them. The unpruned plants made more tomatoes in a short time but over the long haul the pruned plants lived so much longer that they eventually made more. I usually got consistently larger fruit on average from the pruned plant but this could be because of the early onset of disease on the unpruned plants. I do know if you keep the plant to one or two stems and limit the number of blossoms allowed to develop you generally get very large fruits; but since I don't grow for size I don't prune nearly that severely.
I think everyone should experiment and find out what works best for them and their growing conditions.

Interesting replies!

I get a lot of conflicting opinions about pruning. I always get a lot of suckers when I grow indeterminate tomatoes. In the past, I simply left the suckers because they eventually set blooms and fruit resulting in more fruit set on the plant. I couldn't really see the logic in trimming suckers. I'm really curious if I should leave the suckers or remove the suckers. Many people claim the suckers consume energy from the plant resulting in lower production of smaller fruit. It doesn't make sense to me because the suckers have leaves and leaves produce energy for the plant and fruit.

I've watched ten to fifteen videos on youtube to determine the best practice for pruning or not pruning. I got ten to fifteen different opinions. One guy even said "many people disagree with my method of pruning, but this is my video and I will prune the way I want to". One guy preferred to allow his plants to sprawl in order to allow the branches to produce more roots in the ground. He did prune any branches that had a tendency to grow upwards.

I suppose next year, I will prune some and not prune some and see which does best for me. I plan on only pruning suckers and low hanging branches.

Interesting!

Ted