Favorite Pruning Method?

[jhouse]

I swore I would prune this year, and give my plants better ventilation as one weapon in my Early Blight Wars. We have humid weather in southwestern Ohio and blight is always an issue.

I was wondering what methods you folks prefer, there is so much pruning information out there! Even folks that don't like to prune.

So if you have a favorite thread or video, and care to share, that would be awesome, thanks!

Jan H.

[PaulF]

Again, I do not prune except to keep the bottom leaves off the soil.

[nctomatoman]

I try different methods each year...I am all containers and straw bales. I thing of my driveway as a laboratory, and each plant is grown for a reason (seed saving, tasting, for pollen). Your pruning technique should fit your growing area, staking method, plant type, sun hours, etc

[xellos99]

Wait till the suckers are about 1.5" - 2" and rock them back and forth with your fingers and they snap clean off. At least they do with me. Easy

[slugworth]

The suckers I let grow to 5 or 6 inches then use those as cloning material.
I topped all my determinate plants right off the bat before I even planted them
and cloned the tops.
I will plant the clones permanent after the mothers pass away.

[b54red]

Most of my tomatoes are grown in a single stem pruning method and the lean and lower support system. It works good down here with the high humidity and extreme heat. The plants are much easier to spray and once you get everything set up and running they are much easier to maintain. As the fruit gets picked I remove all the leaves and stems below the next batch of ripening fruit. This keeps old leaves to a minimum and reduces disease problems while at the same time keeping air flow better.

I do have a half dozen plants on a trellis and can never keep them to few enough stems and right now they are getting pretty messy and I'm already having far more leaf diseases on those six plants than all my others. I should have kept them to no more than three stems but most of them have at least five and one has as many as eight.

I try to remove everything below the first blooms very early after setting them out to reduce early leaf diseases. I also spray with Daconil and alternate with a copper spray. I also remove any diseased leaves as soon as I spot them even if it leaves some fruit unprotected because the more diseased leaves on the plant the faster the diseases seem to spread.

Bill

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by PaulF

Again, I do not prune except to keep the bottom leaves off the soil.

Me too or any bad looking leaves.

[ContainerTed]

I guess I have the reputation of being the poster child for "NO PRUNING". But in reality, I agree with PaulF and the others who trim away unhealthy foliage that has changed colors, etc. I just don't believe in this insanity of cut everything back to certain this, that, or the other.

My theory is to do whatever I can to keep the plant healthy and vibrant, and let Mother Nature tell me what this or that particular plant wants to look like. I think folks who say they know better than Mother nature are a bit too full of themselves. If a plant doesn't like my setup, then I might change that setup a bit for "that particular plant". I keep what I can off the soil and just let the plants show me what they can do with my garden setups.

To me, there is just something "un-natural" about forcing plants to do this or that to please ourselves, or even worse, to cause our critics and friends and other "judges of our living conditions" to think well about us. I find that Mother Nature has a very good "grand plan" that we mortals need to pay more attention to. Remember, "it's not nice to mess with Mother Nature."


JMHO.

I prune all suckers below the first truss, then enough to give good airflow vs. sun scald protection.
Some plants, like Tim’s Black Ruffles, are crazy growers and get pruned more. Others, like Brandywine Black, don’t need all that much.

[jhouse]

Thanks all I'm absorbing all that!

I've had a lot of fruit in the past, but also a lot of blight in the past, as my plants get messy as the season goes, even though I've gotten rid of all blighty foliage. I've noticed that the inner foliage-packed parts of the plants where it stays wet or damp is often where the blight takes hold. So I do want to ventilate better in any case.

One thing I did differently this year, is change the direction of my rows. the wind almost always comes from the west, and my rows were west to east, so the first plants would get the breeze but less as you move down the row, so I wonder if those last plants didn't get dried out as well after dew & rain. This year I planted north/south so all plants should get the breeze equally. Of course they could get air borne blight as well, should be interesting to see what happens.


Love all the opinions!

Jan

[SueCT]

I don't prune except bottom leaves. That said, I always [I]intend[I] to leave more space between plants to increase air circulation and help keep disease down. In actuality, I almost never acomplish it, lol. If I ever get serious about going completely organic I am going to have to enlarge the garden or cut down on the number I plant by at least 25%. I have found in the few years that I did that, I had significantly less fungal diseases. My guess is that if nothing else the leaves dry faster after rain and cut down on the conditions that promote disease growth, but it also cuts down on transfer of disease between plants if plants are not touching each other. Many years ago I tried pruning, first removing all suckers, later years pruning to 3 main stems. My own personal experience was that in my climate, the pruning didn't help at all, I just got fewer tomatoes, although probably somewhat larger ones. For some reason the spacing of plants, pruning lower leaves, and a good layer of mulch between the soil and leaves have been the only things that helped other than spraying. Leaving a minimum of 3 feet between plants on all sides, which meant really more like 4 feet apart when planting, resulted in a noticable difference. It promotes air movement, faster drying of leaves and less transfer of disease between plants. The last thing I noticied was using larger cages seemed to help a little. It gave the fuller plants more room to spread out, the leaves are not bunched together as tightly, and there is better air movement inside the plant. At least that is my theory. I have noticed that the cherries/grapes i plant and don't cage, they sprawl over the stone wall around my garden and over the grass, get very little disease. Pleanty of air circulation and no contact with the dirt, since the grass is thick and keeps the plants off any dirt. The one year I remember accomplishing all of that (generous spacing, using large cages, mulching well, and pruning only the lower leaves that might touch the ground, if any at all) I was picking tomatoes until late October. In my worst years I am done by mid Sept. due to disease. That year I was stopped only by the arrival cold weather and frost. I should mention that we also had warmer weather later into fall that year, which helped a lot. But more often than not, i am limited as much by disease as temperatures.

[tryno12]

Slugworth, what is the best method/how do you successfully clone the tops and suckers? How do you know where to "top" the plants?
Thanks
Pete

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by PaulF

Again, I do not prune except to keep the bottom leaves off the soil.

Originally Posted by Worth1

Me too or any bad looking leaves.

Same here. Just make sure they can get some air circulation. The leaf section is what to thin out when a plants gets too overgrown. The leaf section is badly misnamed. It's the parts that grow downwards that have no chance of flowering or growing tomatoes. Get rid of those if needed.

[zipcode]

There's imo only two ways to prune. One is just remove lower suckers and some lower leaves, and the second one is one stem pruning. Anything in between is just more work, and only necessary on some varieties that just don't produce well with one stem (cherries with fixed amount of flowers per truss, some saladettes-cocktail). So in your case I would say one stem, since you have humidity problems.

[slugworth]

Originally Posted by tryno12

Slugworth, what is the best method/how do you successfully clone the tops and suckers? How do you know where to "top" the plants?
Thanks
Pete

I use the 16oz plastic cups most of the time so I can check the progress of the growing roots.
No drainage,the potting soil must be soupy and warm-70 to 75 degrees F.
Size depends on the donor plant,the red robin and heatmaster were puny to begin with so those
cuttings were only about 2 inches.I try to get cuttings in the 6 to 8 inch range.
Some people just clone in water,I prefer a soupy potting soil mix.
Suckers will produce tomatoes when cloned and it is easy when you have the summer heat to take advantage of.
Years ago I topped a silvery fir tree tomato and gave away the clone and the
person I gave it to couldn't even tell it was a clone.
A handy option for "precious" plants that you only have 1 or 2 of.