Extreme Tomato Plant Pruning

[organichris]

I watched some YouTube videos yesterday of a former commercial tomato farmer. According to him, he no longer farms commercially but he is demonstrating how he did it by building a garden and teaching his methods.

Anyway his farming method involves some pretty extreme pruning. First, he buries the transplants up to 18 inches deep, leaving just the very top set of leaves. (I realize this isn't that unusual.) Then he pulls off the first blossoms. And he continues to prune the leaves and shoots until the plant is producing tomatoes at a height of 1 foot. He completely mutilates his plants, and keeps them small and growing close together.

My question is this: Isn't he inhibiting photosynthesis by removing so many leaves? It seems like this might affect flavor, given that the sugars produced in the leaves are distributed to the fruit. Is this really a viable method for homegrown tomatoes or is this more of a commercial farmer thing, where one's goal is to grow the most amount of produce per square foot?

Maybe later I can post some of the links to the vids. If you locate the links before I do, feel free to post them. He isn't far enough into the growing season yet to show how good his yields are.

[clara]

My mother told me that my grandmother always removed nearly all leaves and had a pretty good harvest every year. This year I'll do it with plants of the same variety just to see whether it works or not.

[amideutch]

Chris, was he growing hybrids or OP's when he was doing it commercially. Ami

[hunter]

Do you happen to have a link to that video?

[organichris]

I'm at work right now, and YouTube is blocked so I can get the link. But he was growing two varieties, one of them was Ace. He says that Ace is the one that he used to grow commercially.

[organichris]

CORRECTION: I just did a Google search and I think I have located the link. I haven't previewed it to make sure (because I can't), but I'm about 85% positive.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fONuPI00ls

[jhp]

Ack! I don't have the guts to do that to my plants! That is extreme. I don't prune at all so it makes me wonder too...

There's another video after that where he shows the plants strung up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76E57aKRjjA

[gssgarden]

Good Grief. I would never come that close for fear of losing the plant. He barely left anything on the second one. Jeesh.

[robin303]

Gee Whiz, Looks like he was growing in a gravel pit and the soil looked pitiful.

[organichris]

I would really like to invite Chuck (the guy in the videos) into our conversation. I tried to send him a private message from my Youtube account but I think there may be something wrong with my computer preventing it from going through. If anyone else wants to, feel free.

jhp, thanks for posting that other link. That was actually the one I was thinking of to begin with.

robin303, I agree that his soil doesn't look so hot but apparently he amends it quite heavily with his own homemade compost. But yeah, I saw those rocks in there too.

[jhp]

He has some earlier videos where he talks about planting and amending the soil. You can see those if you click on his user name and then click see all videos. I didn't get into watching all of the previous ones, just the pruning videos. I'm so squeamish about pruning. I wish he had videos showing how it grows on and how he prunes as the plant gets tall. I would think at some point he has to stop all that pruning and let something grow. My question is, what do you let grow and when do you start letting it grow and where do the tomatoes grow????? Okay, so three questions.

I'm glad you posted that other video organichris. It helps to understand how extreme his pruning is and what the plants look like after the pruning.

As I said, I'm not a pruner, but must admit, I'm curious and maybe I should try it at least once.

Jen

[organichris]

Yeah, I'm not much of a pruner either. I will pull some of the suckers or unhealthy-looking leaves. Like you, I'm more or less just curious. I think he plans on posting more videos as the season progresses, so hopefully we'll get to see the finished product.

[jhp]

Well, I emailed him through his squidoo website and invited him to join the thread. He emailed me back that he just register on t'ville and is waiting to be "approved". So I guess he'll be coming along sometime to talk to us.

[organichris]

Thanks, Jen. I'm really anxious to chat with this guy.

[johno]

I've seen discussions on heavy (or even any) pruning before, and of course the logical anti-pruning argument comes up: the plant needs its leaves for photosynthesis in order to make energy. I can't say I disagree. But then, I have found exceptions to the rules I was taught in botany class years ago. In fact, one of my science professors pointed out that about half of what they were teaching us would turn out to be false in the end.

So, I suppose I am willing to see the results of a side-by-side field test. There are a lot of tomato growers who swear by heavy pruning. There just might be something to it that we don't yet understand.

My personal experience is that even pruning suckers resulted in poor production; but I only tried that once, and didn't have a control group at the same time.

My curiosity is piqued.

But yeah, watching the video, I wanted to tell him to stop well before he did!