Supporting Hundreds of Tomato Plants

[Farmette]

Is it possible for you to post some pictures of that?

[JustBob]

Hello all
Well this year has been quite a learning experience. With 6 rows and 260 plants in the field I had to increase my learning curve substantially to support all those plants. I was going to use the Mittleider T-Post until time got the best of me and I realized there was no way I was going to get them built and installed in time to keep the plants off the ground. I searched around the web and the Florida Weave seemed like the most feasible. I found some 5 ft stakes locally for 50 cents a piece and already had a large ball of twine that I used with the T-Frames I have at the house. Unfortunately the 5 ft stakes aren't high enough which I already knew. Since I have a sawmill I will be cutting some 8ft white oak stakes this fall to accomodate the height for next year. Once they reach about 6ft I can just let them cascade back down rather than try to weave any higher

I've found a couple of good descriptions of the weave and several other methods which I'm posting here
http://www.extension.org/article/18647
http://www.foogod.com/~torquill/barefoot/weave.html
A good video from Johnny's Seed
http://www.growingwisdom.com/index.a...&sid=1&cid=341

Bob

[Colorado_west]

Good question. Fields here when they raise them was sprawl. But I think were determinate tomatoes. Cannery tomatoes. I have let mine sprawl and my 100 ft rows. I had thought of Fl weave for the small fruited but my rows run north to south. Winds come mostly from west to north west and it would get them broad side and I had my doubts if I could have them stand up. So I never tried it.

[Ken]

Originally Posted by CricketsGarden

An outdoor support system using T post and clothes line wire.

Hi Cricket, What are your white pots you are growing in?

Thanks
Ken

[pinakbet]

Hobo Cabbage,

Is it similar to this setup?




The pictures are taken from one of Nagoya Agricultural Center's green houses.

[JackE]

We plant thousands of tomato plants and have tried all support systems, but now use the Florida Weave almost exclusively (anybody wanna buy 800 CRW cages?).

I had a hard time learning the FW system, until I made a few discoveries:

(1) The "box on the belt" was awkward. It's a lot easier with two people - one carrying the twine, the other tying, and trading-off every few hundred row/feet when your back starts to hurt. I never did master the pvc tool they talk about - and still don't understand how it works!

(2) No need to criss-cross between plants. It serves no useful purpose and only makes it harder and can even damage the plants - take a double turn on each stake (not a knot or you'll be sorry time at clean-up time) and just go straight down each side. For most determinates, three runs, a foot apart, are enough. (Amelia needs a fourth run and 5' stakes). Some of the more compact cultivars only need two runs.
We use poly baling twine because it doesn't stretch - the thinner stuff works okay because it sort of "flattens" when tight against the stems, and we find it easier to work with than the larger diameter - also cheaper.

(3) We use 4' X 3/8" reinforcing rods, driven-in one foot, and placed 36" apart. Put two plants (18" centers) in between each set of stakes.

Jack

[JackE]

Clean-up is sooo much easier - nothing like the cages, where you almost have to pull the cage and the plant up together and then tear it out of the cage piece by piece - and then carry the cages, max four at a time, to a trailer, transport them to the stacking location and spend hours stacking them - only to have them fall over during the winter! Ours are all "half cages" (2-1/2 feet instead of 5 ft) but still a real pain in the neck to store and handle. However, you do get twice as many from a roll of CRW. I'm tempted to give these cages away to home gardeners in the church, but everytime I do that I wind-up needing it later! :-)

With the weave, you pull the stakes first - just drop them to the ground, and then you can pull the twine right out (if you only use two wraps when you weave), leaving no twine behind to wrap-up in machinery later. Baling twine does not degrade. Finally, just gather up the stakes and toss them on the trailer. Be sure to get all the stakes because the discs (or worse, the tiller) will find them in the spring!

And then there was the horrendous weeding problems with the cages, which improved when we started using Devrinol pre-emergent herbicide, but still a hassle. With the weave system, we can mechanically cultivate and lay it to the plants with a half-sweep blade - just like you would lay-by sweet corn.

Jack

[Mark0820]

Ken,

That is an interesting system. How far apart do you plant between the two rows of tomato plants? And, do you just wrap the clothes line wire around the outside of the t-posts? Are your plants indeterminate?

I'm just a small backyard grower and use cages, but by the end of the year some of the cages get top heavy and fall over (and need to be stacked). The cages take a lot of space to store, so I am always looking for new ways to do things.

Mark

[JackE]

Mark - put a rebar stake on the downwind side of the cage - 1/2" X 5" for a 5' cage (leaving 4' above ground and attached with one tie of wire).

We always plant in the direction of the prevailing southerly wind here, but a big thunder storm can wreak havoc with cages under a heavy load of fruit.

I know a home gardener who weaves indeterminates using t-posts. It takes one 6' post for every two plants though, and with t-posts now at seven bucks each it's not economically viable for a market gardener. Also a lot of heavy labor to drive them and even worse to pull them out again. Tractor Supply sells a t-post puller that works great for pulling them, and it doesn't bend them - still a lot of work, though.

We space rows of determinates at 4' and indeterminates at 6'.

We are considering some indeterminates for next year as a way to beat our sunscald problem. They provide shade for the toms if you don't prune. As a home gardener before I retired, I never had sunscald in indeterminates, but these commercial tomatoes expose the ripening fruit to the full force of the sun, which has been hotter and earlier every year. Also, you have fewer weed problems inside the cages due to the shade. So, Im also weighing support system options for the big vining toms - it's a tough (and for us an expensive) problem all right. They are also better slicing/eating tomatoes and the harvest time is extended by several weeks. They don't have TSWV resistance though.

One thing I WON'T do is to let them sprawl! I tried that once - what a mess!!

Jack