"Suckering Tomatoes"

[Poohtoo8]

Thank you for the Epic Tomato reference. Purchased the book electronically and it is full of useful information!

[StrongPlant]

I think it might be worthwhile experimenting with missouri prunning as well.I'm trying it out this year,I'm pretty certain that multifloras would benefit greatly from it,because the numerous fruits drain the plant of it's resources heavily,leaving little for other things it needs.
Also,there are many indet. tomatoes that grow really elognated,having a whole bunch of empty space between leaves,so fitting another 1-2 more would be useful to use up all that light.For plants with really short internodes(compact growth) I would not reccomend it.

Of course,this means double the maintenance.

[Spartanburg123]

Originally Posted by WaltRoos

I've had out of control Whiteflies for the last several years. So far I can't get rid of them no matter what I've tried, and I've tried a lot of different sprays timed per directions, and the yellow paper/grease traps. I don't think I've caught more than 2 flies with 4 of the traps. It's a hard fought battle that I wage, from the time they first show up, until frost. Waiting for their natural predators to build up is always a losing game for me.

About those Suckers. Hold them over in some water. Remember you can trim off a few big leaves from them (may not have to do that), stick them in some very damp potting mix and locate under full to heavy shade, water again and often to keep the mix damp. In about 2 weeks you will have a nice new plant to harden off for planting some late summer-Fall tomatoes to harvest. The fresh plants seem to do better than the older ones that have had to deal with the entire Summer stuff. I usually grow out my best of the early medium to larger tomatoes for the fall plants because by that time I am running over with small tomatoes which may be hard to find a home for. I do use some for throwing at the Squirrels .

BTW Thanks to Craig LeHOULLIER for his great book "EPIC TOMATOES" which I sleep with, OK, not physically. Even though I mostly grow Hybrid Tomatoes, this book gets far more use than any of my many other Tomato books. 2nd best Tomato book is the old "All About Tomatoes " by Ortho Books. There are some Myth Busters in there that I've been living by for 10 + years. Also lots, and lots of great info on growing Tomatoes. You can usually pick one up on E-Bay for a couple of bucks. Don't worry which regional edition you buy, most of the regional information is out of date anyway, Lots of new great Tomatoes have been added to our choices since the seventies.


walt

Good points Walt. I have thought about this- Gardeneer lost his only DLH plant recently, and I just clipped off 10-15 suckers from the top of my monster plant. I wonder if I could get it rooted in water, and perhaps mail to him to grow for fall tomatoes? Is this nuts, or can it work?

Thanks!
Darin

[zipcode]

Missouri pruning is nothing all that good imo.
Now pruning the main leader and allowing a sucker to grow instead, that one is pretty gosh darnoodley useful. I forgot how it's called.
Of course, one shouldn't do it at each sucker, but like every 3 or so. Unless you grow in hydro style and maybe even grafted for extra vigour, you will at some point just have your plant produce tiny flowers that won't set. This happens at fifth-sixth flower branch or so (depending on how well the tomato has set on the lower branches and how exact it was fertilized and variety and so on). I know for me it happens every time, no question asked in containers (organic fertilizer), usually at 4th-5th branch. This technique keeps the plant from growing up with some spindly growth that doesn't produce (and with more upper growth comes less and less vigour, it's just the way tomatoes behave), and allows it to start growing when it has enough resources to do it properly.

[WaltRoos]

Originally Posted by Spartanburg123

Good points Walt. I have thought about this- Gardeneer lost his only DLH plant recently, and I just clipped off 10-15 suckers from the top of my monster plant. I wonder if I could get it rooted in water, and perhaps mail to him to grow for fall tomatoes? Is this nuts, or can it work?

Thanks!
Darin

Hi Darin,
I've just about stopped growing the roots for my suckers in water. It does works great, be sure to keep the growing tip above the water, but seems to me that when sticking the suckers in potting mix instead of water, they grow much faster. Mine show roots in the bottom of a 16 oz styrofoam cup (with drainage holes), in about 7 days. Takes more time in water. I sure don't know anything about the DLH tomatoes, time to mature, or shipping live tender plants.

I'm thinking for me about 2 weeks from cutting stuck in the potting mix to being ready for my 5 gal. containers. Wouldn't hurt to set the bucket in the shade for 2 days or so to be sure the plant doesn't wilt.

walt

[Nematode]

Originally Posted by zipcode

Missouri pruning is nothing all that good imo.
Now pruning the main leader and allowing a sucker to grow instead, that one is pretty gosh darnoodley useful. I forgot how it's called.
Of course, one shouldn't do it at each sucker, but like every 3 or so. Unless you grow in hydro style and maybe even grafted for extra vigour, you will at some point just have your plant produce tiny flowers that won't set. This happens at fifth-sixth flower branch or so (depending on how well the tomato has set on the lower branches and how exact it was fertilized and variety and so on). I know for me it happens every time, no question asked in containers (organic fertilizer), usually at 4th-5th branch. This technique keeps the plant from growing up with some spindly growth that doesn't produce (and with more upper growth comes less and less vigour, it's just the way tomatoes behave), and allows it to start growing when it has enough resources to do it properly.

Hi Zip,
Do you have more information on this method?
Thx

[WaltRoos]

Originally Posted by Poohtoo8

Thank you for the Epic Tomato reference. Purchased the book electronically and it is full of useful information!

Hi ,
The quality of the paperback version is very, very good. I think at some time you may want to consider it as a gift to that special someone who would let you borrow it once in a while.

walt

[zipcode]

Originally Posted by Nematode

Hi Zip,
Do you have more information on this method?
Thx

I really don't remember how it's called officially. I think it has something to do with France, but I'm not really sure.
It's mostly used for earlier good yield, but I think that it works better as a vigour keeper for heirlooms (who kinda lack vigour after a certain height).
It goes like this: prune normally until after second flower branch. Then cut the growing tip, and leave a sucker from close to the top to become the new main growing tip. This way you delay that top growth by more or less depending on how much vegetative power the plant has. And you get those first fruit to be bigger. Repeat same way every two flower branches.
Now my variation is like this: leave 4 flower branches and cut the tip. If growing in hydro where vigour keeps much better, I would leave 5 or more (depends how many branches you think you get to set reliably), cut the tip, repeat every 2 flower branches (if your season length actually allows). This way actually the top growth is slowed down considerably (2-3 weeks) because at that stage the vegetative growth of the plant is quite poor due to too much fruit on the lower branches (typical heirloom problem). Cutting the tip will increase the chance of growing flowers to pollinate (seriously), so I get max set on those first 4 branches, and only when vigour will return will that sucker start putting on faster growth which will be be productive with normally developed flowers.
I hope that was somewhat clear.

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by zipcode

I really don't remember how it's called officially. I think it has something to do with France, but I'm not really sure.
It's mostly used for earlier good yield, but I think that it works better as a vigour keeper for heirlooms (who kinda lack vigour after a certain height).
It goes like this: prune normally until after second flower branch. Then cut the growing tip, and leave a sucker from close to the top to become the new main growing tip. This way you delay that top growth by more or less depending on how much vegetative power the plant has. And you get those first fruit to be bigger. Repeat same way every two flower branches.
Now my variation is like this: leave 4 flower branches and cut the tip. If growing in hydro where vigour keeps much better, I would leave 5 or more (depends how many branches you think you get to set reliably), cut the tip, repeat every 2 flower branches (if your season length actually allows). This way actually the top growth is slowed down considerably (2-3 weeks) because at that stage the vegetative growth of the plant is quite poor due to too much fruit on the lower branches (typical heirloom problem). Cutting the tip will increase the chance of growing flowers to pollinate (seriously), so I get max set on those first 4 branches, and only when vigour will return will that sucker start putting on faster growth which will be be productive with normally developed flowers.
I hope that was somewhat clear.

I think it is called French Pruning.

FP-1.gif

FP-3.gif

[elight]

Those images come from this page (translated poorly by Google):

http://translate.googleusercontent.c...QOopkpM0JrS_gQ

It's been brought up here before (that's how I got the link, I think!) but never in great detail.

It does seem to be showing a preference for suckers even in the second stage. I'd be curious for an explanation as to why a sucker would be more productive.

I guess you could adapt this to a single stem as well.

I would like to suggest we call this Paris Pruning... Or the PP Method.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[zipcode]

The explanation is more consistent fruiting. As you know, commercial growers obsess with that vegetative/generative balance, which is all about consistency, that is the key to production, especially in a long growing season.
That is why almost all hybrids have a limited number of flowers per truss. Like Big Beef has 6-8. It's more important to make truss after truss consistently than make a few massive trusses that will shut the plant and in the end lead to less production.
I remember being very surprised a few years ago when I saw that a fairly unimpressive plant of Moravsky Div was my most productive. I weigh everything and at the end of the season the very consistent one won, while the loaded Indian Stripe, which I was sure was leading comfortably, didn't.

I am sure the single stem French style exists, I must have read about it maybe on some french forums I sometimes visit (I like to visit french and german forums as they have plenty of picture with season garden progress)

[Nematode]

That site includes many examples of pruning including "normal" single stem with topping after 6 trusses.
I too am perplexed by keeping the suckers and pruning the main. The main always flowers sooner than the sucker.

[Ricky Shaw]

I was hoping this would get picked up, I thought about this several times in the garden yesterday, and wondered if this perceived vigor is about plant hydraulics. And if these effects are compounded in containers, because of limitations on root ball size.

[elight]

Thanks for pointing out the single-stem example on that site - I now realize I had seen it before but did not see the link this time around. Here's the direct link: http://translate.google.com/translat...ur_2-tiges.htm

The explanation for topping after six clusters is that "Indeed the following flowers do not ripen under our climates." So if that is the only reason for topping, then I would think that each of us should top our plants as is appropriate for our particular climate, as we likely already do (i.e., at the point at which new fruit will not be ripe by the first frost).

[Cole_Robbie]

My bottom-most fruit have sun-scald from my attempts at single-stem pruning. The problem is improving as I pick fruit higher up on the plant.