Pruning Indeterminate Tomatoes

[Alabamy]

What is your opinion about pruning indeterminates? Do you go for a single stem for bigger, sweeter tomatoes or several stems for more frequent but smaller fruit? I'm planning to keep two stems on my cherry varieties and a single main stem for the rest. I figure this will give me cute little cherry tomatoes while allowing the slicers to get as large as possible. Anyway, these are the types I'm growing, I have about 3 of each type.


Yellow Pear Cherry
Peacevine Cherry
Prize of the Trials Cherry
Oaxacan Pink
Tigerella
Caro Rich
Red Calabash

[Jackie-T]

I prune most all my tomatoes to two leaders that way I have a back up in case something should happen to one.

[SpaceAge]

prune older leaves up to sets ... this could be once a week per plant ...

[reubenT]

only if they're too close to each other and need to grow more up than out, otherwise I'll let em do whatever they want to.

[RonnyWil]

I let mine get to a couple feet tall and then trim all but the main stems, usually two to four of them, about a foot from the ground to keep any foliage from touching the ground.

[Blanesgarden]

Indeterminates?
need pruning?

One question....
WHY?:eek:

Really...tell me why?

[mmmtomatoes]

My question exactly!

[redneckplanter]

i'm letting mine sprawl in half the patch.
no major difference that i can see?

[LuvsToPlant]

I was taught many years ago by a very knowledgeable botany teacher at
the University and member of the Cooperative Extention Service
that indeterminates are more heavily pruned.
Reason ...because they continualy produce vines and fruit.
Pruning begins about 2-3 weeks after transplanting when they
are about 15 inches tall.
I was taught to allow a second stem to form
(the first sucker just below the first flower cluster)
All other suckers below that ....are to be pruned.
Just an opinion
:)

[Bama mater]

I've never pruned tomato plants in my 20+ years of growing and have had bumper crops most years. I have seen sun scald on some varietys, so I'm of the belief the more green leaves the better for shade.

[Blanesgarden]

I was taught many years ago by a very knowledgeable botany teacher at
the University and member of the Cooperative Extention Service
that indeterminates are more heavily pruned.
Reason ...because they continualy produce vines and fruit.
Pruning begins about 2-3 weeks after transplanting when they
are about 15 inches tall.
I was taught to allow a second stem to form
(the first sucker just below the first flower cluster)
All other suckers below that ....are to be pruned.
Just an opinion
:)

Yes, however....Pruning and Removing the suckers are 2 different actions.
IMO.:)

[LuvsToPlant]

Sorry Blaine ...I don't mean to sound rude...
But to a Horticulturist removing the suckers in between the nodes on a tomato
plant is concidered a pruning task.

And if you do it while it is still young before the fruit forms
your not apt to get sun scald
:)

I just googled "pruning indeterminate"
and found this wonderful site that will help explain why you should prune suckers on indetermininate.
Hope you all find it interesting
:)
http://www.howtodothings.com/home-and-garden/a2947-how-to-prune-tomatoes.html

[bellzeybubba]

hmmmmm
I haven't been pruning my tomatoes. The vines are huge, and there are a lot of green fruit already on them, especially on the cherry vines. My first bunch is just now starting to ripen. I've got very tall supports set up so there aren't any vines lying on the ground. Should I start pruning now even though I haven't been? Maybe just to clean up the bottom leaves? There are a few starting to turn yellow, this is happening near the bottom of the first main stalks.

[SpaceAge]

Indeterminates?
need pruning?

One question....
WHY?:eek:

Really...tell me why?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blane , mmm & Bamma ,

when you trim the older growth the plant will concentrate the energy of the plant in the new leaf and fruit areas instead of dealing with the older leaves ... this is very common / required practice in Greenhouse growing , where vines get 35 > 55 ft long ! :eek: not bad for plants that grow out of a Rock-Wool Cube that is 5" square !

for the back-yard gardener it is true that sunburned trunks are an issue that Greenhouse growers do not have to deal with as much , ... I use taped newspaper rolled up around really long stems in the AZ desert as I prune ... you will increase your yield per plant if you put in the extra work ... if you choose not to , ... no problemo ... but your yield of edible fruit WILL be lower .

Space'

[SpaceAge]

hmmmmm
I haven't been pruning my tomatoes. The vines are huge, and there are a lot of green fruit already on them, especially on the cherry vines. My first bunch is just now starting to ripen. I've got very tall supports set up so there aren't any vines lying on the ground. Should I start pruning now even though I haven't been? Maybe just to clean up the bottom leaves? There are a few starting to turn yellow, this is happening near the bottom of the first main stalks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes you should prune up to the first active "sets" of fruits ... keep in mind that the base / trunk / vine stem is now exposed to direct sunlight and can "blister / crack / dry-out if not "protected" by wrapping something around it ... my buddy in PX used dollar store foil , I used newspaper & tape ... whatever you use don't tie it so hard you constrict the flow of nutrients.

Space'

[LuvsToPlant]

hmmmmm
I haven't been pruning my tomatoes. The vines are huge, and there are a lot of green fruit already on them, especially on the cherry vines. My first bunch is just now starting to ripen. I've got very tall supports set up so there aren't any vines lying on the ground. Should I start pruning now even though I haven't been? Maybe just to clean up the bottom leaves? There are a few starting to turn yellow, this is happening near the bottom of the first main stalks.

As I mentioned before above in my first post...( re read my first post)
It's best to prune out the new vines (suckers) that appear between the leaf and main stem just after the plant develops it's first cluster of flowers.
You prune anything below that.
If you prune later...you could develop sun scald on the tomatoes...
If yours is still small , you could try.

I'm sure you are loaded with fruit...thats because of the many branched vines on a indeterminate, but the fruit will be smaller.
The reason of pruning, is to develop nice sized fruit which has better flavor.
Pruning will slightly cut down of the amount of fruit, but the fruit will be
a larger size and again a better flavor.

If you have never pruned out the suckers ....
Try it ....and compare to a plant you choose not to.
You will see a difference.

Again the best time to prune is just after the first flower cluster appears.
If to late...wait till next year to try...to make a fair assessment.
:)

[Bama mater]

SpaceAge, I'm old fashioned, I'm hard headed, and as the wife claims sometimes an old stick in the mud, and <----> sure not good at changing things after I've had success. However I have a couple hundred plants going right now I suppose I could do an experiment on a couple of them, I don't doubt that it may increase the yeild, I just wonder what percentage of increase there would be.

See now ya'll have added yet another task to my never ending list.

[karlkatzke]

I'm mixed on the idea ... when I have the space, I tend to let them go as much as I can. Some varieties I don't prune at all -- Sweet 100's are an excellent example of ones that I pretty much avoid pruning if I can.

This year, with the raised/enclosed bed, I'm pruning heavily to keep the bushes in a floor-to-ceiling column and keep everything getting light. Any leaves that grow outside of the plant's area get snipped back a bit. Other than that, I let nature take it's course, removing about 4/5 of the suckers because I don't need championship fruit, I need a lot of fruit throughout the season. ;)

I also prune completely unproductive branches/trunks as far down as I need to. Just took a trunk off of my roma plant today that was going in the wrong direction... and was going to end up crowding out my cucumbers. It's got about three others, so it'll be fine ... and so far, it's my best producing plant and the one I've pruned the least.

[bellzeybubba]

Thanks for the advice. I went ahead and pruned the bottoms of my vines up until about the first fruit, which ended up being 1-2 ft or so, depending on the plant. Otherwise my vines are something of a big tangled mess, some over 8' tall already, so I'm just going to have to let them go for this year and experiment more in the fall.

[kellygirrl]

So, online I bought pruning directions for tomatoes. Hard pruning to single trunk for bigger fruits, and supposedly more pounds per square foot of garden space. Claimed that the sunlight and air circulation deterred disease. You prune every yes every non fruiting branch except at the top, the three "solar collectors", from which the plant continues to grow. It didn't work well for me at all--high maintenance (although snapping off those branches does get addictive) and I did not see great production, tho it was a terrible tomato year for everyone due to extreme prolonged rainy weather. But it did make me realize how much you can prune a tomato, so I will be far more aggressive this year, even if I'm not trying to grow single stemmed plants.

Really, the only good part of the story is that it is marketed as the tomato secrets of somebody's one armed Polish grandfather. Maybe he was even blind, too. How could I resist?

Karl, sure you don't want to try a little harder to sell me that bridge?

[karlkatzke]

I think that the less I play with the plants, the more fruit I get. The plants I've REALLY hit hard this year are the ones that are barely producing. My thing with trimming the lower leaves SO hard is that these leaves seem to provide the sugar that flows up into the tomatoes.

I try and keep everything so that air and light can get into the middle of the plant (which I agree helps keep pests in check) but I don't go overboard ... or I don't get ANY fruit.

Kelly, act now or you'll miss your chance! Small, unmarked bills or a cashier's check only, please. Such a deal!

[RozieDozie]

I prune my inderterminates early to keep them semi-tamed and I'm pretty ruthless until the first blooms. After that, I just let the tomatoes do their own 'thing', within reason, of course... :)

I've tried all kinds of interesting things, including keeping them pruned, removing blossoms and tomatoes to get bigger, better fruit, trellising, vining with a single branch... If you can do it to a tomato I've probably done it. :)

Anyhow, I just don't get all that worked up about it anymore. Except for the initial pruning when they are small, I let them do their own thing and both the tomatoes and I are much happier.

Pruning is more orderly, but here, in the Land of the Hot, the tomatoes seem to want the extra growth, possibly to make up for less than ideal growing conditions. I've watched LOTS of tomatoes grow here (and, of course, I've asked my plants about it ;)) and when it's over 100 degrees for 30 days in a row, the plants seemed to enjoy the extra leaves and branches. I think they are a source of energy for them.

Rozie

[ContainerTed]

I believe the plants are smarter than we humans when it comes to deciding how they need to grow to make the best seeds for next year - you know, to continue their species on this planet. Survival of the most fit.

Tomato plants are hardwired in their DNA to put out enough foliage to ensure they can perform enough photosynthesis to make all the trace compounds needed for fruit development. This includes those trace compounds having to do with taste. Many times we call this "development of the sugars". Pruning them back serves to cripple this process. Naturally, the plant will react by trying to grow more foliage and then it gets pruned again and the plant tries to grow more........

I think this causes stress in the plant and has it using its very finite amount of energy on recovering from injury instead of focusing on bearing healthy, full-flavored fruit and fighting off diseases and critters.

So, my view is that folks who want smaller plants should grow varieties with smaller, perhaps more compact growth habits. I don't believe we should butcher up a large indeterminate variety and then complain about the taste of the fruit and how the plant died of some viral or fungal disease.

Over on the Topsy Turvy thread, one individual has put two Cherokee Purples and a Georgia Streak in one upside down TT planter. Will that project need pruning to stay in the air? How long will it be before that experiment goes bad?

Let the tomato plant tell you what is wants to look like and then adjust your care accordingly. To me, pruning is like deciding that your children only need 3 fingers to make it through life. Yeah, your garden may look "nice", but the harvest may have less than full flavor.

Okay, let's see a show of hands. How many out there prune their peppers? Gourds? Cucumbers? Beans? Strawberries? (These are rhetorical questions).

JMHO

Ted

[w8in4dave]

Sorry Blaine ...I don't mean to sound rude...
But to a Horticulturist removing the suckers in between the nodes on a tomato
plant is concidered a pruning task.

And if you do it while it is still young before the fruit forms
your not apt to get sun scald
:)

I just googled "pruning indeterminate"
and found this wonderful site that will help explain why you should prune suckers on indetermininate.
Hope you all find it interesting
:)
http://www.howtodothings.com/home-and-garden/a2947-how-to-prune-tomatoes.html

This is very interesting and explains alot, It is still all very confusing to me.. As I think I should prune my tomatoes. I think I may try to find a you tube so I can see it done. Thanks that was very useful!

[w8in4dave]

Ok my bad, they have videos at the bottom of that page!! :) even better no searching :) ...

[kellygirrl]

I believe the plants are smarter than we humans when it comes to deciding how they need to grow to make the best seeds for next year - you know, to continue their species on this planet. Survival of the most fit.

Tomato plants are hardwired in their DNA to put out enough foliage to ensure they can perform enough photosynthesis to make all the trace compounds needed for fruit development. This includes those trace compounds having to do with taste. Many times we call this "development of the sugars". Pruning them back serves to cripple this process. Naturally, the plant will react by trying to grow more foliage and then it gets pruned again and the plant tries to grow more........


I have been told that tomatoes, since they have been ...developed, cultivated, hybridized...I don't know the right language, they're not exactly in the same Darwinian category as wild plants. Some of their programming is not survival oriented.

If I don't prune my tomatoes at all it's some crazy stuff that happens. I would be curious to put them in bigger, better cages and forget about it, but it does seem like the dense jungle inside that would result would not be ideal, from the air circulation/sunlight perspective.

It is good to know that we can prune the plant to fit our garden, and most people consider it useful to the health and productivity of the plant. Fruit trees too. Although there also, there is a no-prune school.

In the above quote, you suggest that pruning causes the plant loss of energy and makes for less sugars in the fruit. However, for what it's worth, that booklet download I bought says that the energy gets directed towards the fruit instead of wasted on all the leaves and stems. Are you gonna argue with somebody's blind, one armed Polish grandfather?;) I myself abandoned his methods for the most part, so don't take me too seriously. This is only for discussion's sake.

Another thing I found good to know is that if you snip the tops/ends a month or so before frost, it gives the fruits on the plant time to ripen, instead of putting energy into growing more plant and flowers that won't have time to ripen.
The same principle applies to gourds, cukes, melons etc.

I haven't checked out the link yet, w8ing4dave, thanks for the reminder.

[ContainerTed]

Kelly, I've been all over the web and have read and downloaded literally hundreds of articles and such on tomatoes. What I've found is a lot of opinions and very little science. So, I have started looking at the data differently. I've gone back to what is possible in the physical universe. When you apply that rule, suddenly some of those opinions are just not valid except in a very narrow view. Most folks want huge tomatoes that have a taste which is only describable by words like "utopia" and "maximum" and all the other superlatives. But that is not the physical universe when you add in things like pruning and inadequate fertilization and bad watering practices.

Dense jungles are the result of excess nitrogen or lack of familiarity with the normal growth habit of the variety. As an example, to achieve maximum taste quality, Sophies Choice needs a lot of greenery to make the compounds necessary. Why would a person want to unnecessarily degrade the quality of the taste of what they are growing?

I guess that I have always been a maverick. I've always believed that if something is really good, it will stand up to questioning to validate its legitimacy today. I've always believed in original thought and thinking outside the box is my religion. Thinking about the accepted practices regarding the growing of tomatoes, I decided to approach the subject from the standpoint of the plant. It was an epiphany, a real moment of awakening. It all made sense. Treat the plant like a living, growing organism.

Well, thanks for letting me rant a bit.

Ted

[kellygirrl]

Ted, you make "rant" a good thing.:)

Do you stake, cage, or sprawl your tomatoes? Do you prune at all? If you are container planting, do you bring them indoors and harvest into winter, or keep a plant alive for a few years?

Tomatoes are perennial. In the book Solviva by Ana Edy (my dream house), she describes 30' tomato vines fruiting in her kitchen.

BTW, people do prune strawberries, too, by removing the mother plants to keep the bed productive.

Seems to me we've always interacted with plants, guiding them in various ways. Some things are extremely human dependent, like corn.

I enjoy hearing your perspective.

[karlkatzke]

Ted, I dunno, I go to an ag school and even the ag guys say to prune them in certain ways. Some of it I believe, some of it I don't... but I do agree that letting the plant mostly 'go' will probably get you the most fruit.

Caveat: Letting the plant 'go' will also sometimes harm the plant or shade out other plants in the garden. That's part of our role as gardeners, to focus on the whole at the cost of each plant.

One thing that flies in the face of the 'natural selection' principle is seed sharing / mailing and easy transportation to new areas. We can grow a tomato here in Texas that is "designed" for Oregon's climate (also a USDA 8, albeit a much shorter season) but in the summer time it will have a pretty difficult time. It's not going to deal well with 100 degree temps, which Oregon never sees.

I do prune my strawberries ... since my plants are new. I take the suckers and try to leave only one flower per stem to get larger fruit. It seems to work pretty well so far.

[redneckplanter]

some really good reading here.
if i may pose a rambling thought/query??
along ted's line of thinking.....
if the tomato needs leaves for photosynthesis?and making neccesary sugars ect.....
wouldn't pruning defeat the purpose?
like stripping the leaves off a grape vine thus altering the wine's more subjective nuances?
i also read somewhere that a plant that is deficient in nitrogen ect...will uptake what it needs from the lower leaves?
reduced leaves=suffering/stressed plants???
just rambling.opinions?
rnp

[Alabamy]

What would happen if you treated a Hybrid Tea Rose like a wild rose? My point is that I don't believe that domesticated plants do their best when left to their own devices. In my opinion humans have spent generations domesticating plants, selecting for traits they enjoy (taste, seeds, color, shape etc) and the trade off is that many plants have come to rely on human attention.

Here is a good article on pruning Indet if you're interested. I'm going to try and quote it but I'm not sure if the code works here.


http://www.finegardening.com/CMS/uploadedImages/Images/kitchen_gardener/042027016_xlg.jpg
Early pruning encourages strong stems. Remove all suckers and leaves below the first flower cluster. Let a second stem arise from the node just above the lowest flower cluster. Let a third stem arise from the second node above the first flower cluster.

Video: Pruning Tomatoes
http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/videos/pruning-tomatoes.aspx

Pruning Tomatoes: How to manage your plants for better health and better fruit
by Frank Ferrandino http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx

The intrinsic vigor and hardiness of tomatoes almost always guarantees a successful harvest. However, the rapid growth of a healthy tomato plant can also lead to problems.

A tomato is a solar-powered sugar factory. For the first month or so, all of the sugar it produces is directed towards new leaf growth. During this stage, tomato plants grow very rapidly, doubling their size every 12 to 15 days. Eventually, the plants make more sugar than the single growing tip can use, which signals the plant to make new branches and to flower. This usually happens after 10 to 13 leaves have expanded, at which time the plant is 12 to 18 inches tall. In the next few weeks, the entire character of the tomato plant changes. If unsupported, the increasing weight of filling fruit and multiple side branches forces the plant to lie on the ground. Once the main stem is horizontal, there is an increased tendency to branch. Left to its own devices, a vigorous indeterminate tomato plant can easily cover a 4- by 4-foot area with as many as 10 stems, each 3 to 5 feet long. By season's end, it will be an unsightly, impenetrable, disease-wracked tangle.

With tomatoes, we want to maximize the efficiency of photosynthesis and minimize the risk of disease. This is best accomplished by ensuring that each leaf has plenty of room and is supported up off the ground. When a tomato plant lies on the ground, or when its growth is extremely dense, many of its leaves are forced into permanent shade, greatly reducing the amount of sugar they produce. If a leaf uses more sugar than it makes, eventually it will yellow and drop off. A pruned and staked plant will produce larger fruit two to three weeks earlier than a prostrate one.

A properly pruned and supported single-stem tomato plant presents all of its leaves to the sun. Most of the sugar produced is directed to the developing fruit, since the only competition is a single growing tip. The result is large fruits that are steadily produced until frost. If more stems are allowed to develop, some of the precious sugar production is diverted from fruit to multiple growing tips. Fruit production, although slowed, never stops. The result is a nearly continuous supply of fruits throughout the season. In general, more stems means more but smaller fruits, which are produced increasingly later in the season. (This is much less applicable to determinate plants, due to their shortened growing season and better-defined fruiting period. Therefore, determinate plants require little pruning. See "Indeterminate vs. Determinate," below.)



Pruning also affects plant health. The leaves of a pruned and supported plant dry off faster, so bacterial and fungal pathogens have less opportunity to spread. Soil is less liable to splash up onto staked plants. The bottom line: Upright plants have fewer problems with leaf spots and fruit rots because their leaves stay drier and free from pathogen-laden soil.

The way you choose to train and prune your tomato plants will affect how you space your plants, as well as the best method of support . There's no one right way to do it. Instead there are a few good patterns to follow.


Side stems affect plant vigor

As a tomato grows, side shoots, or suckers, form in the crotches, or axils, between the leaves and the main stem. If left alone, these suckers will grow just like the main stem, producing flowers and fruit.

Suckers appear sequentially, from the bottom of the plant up. The farther up on the plant a sucker develops, the weaker it is, because the sugar concentration gets lower as you move up the plant. On the other hand, side stems arising from below the first flower cluster, although stronger, compromise the strength of the main stem. For a multi-stemmed plant, your aim is to have all stems roughly the same size, although the main stem should always be stronger, because it has to feed the entire plant for the next five or six months. Here's how I achieve this.

I keep tomatoes free of side stems below the first fruit cluster. When trained to one vine and left free-standing, tomato plants develop strong main stems. To encourage a strong stem, I remove all suckers and I don't tie plants to their supports until the first flowers appear.

Determinate tomatoes need no pruning other than removing all suckers below the first flower cluster, because pruning won't affect their fruit size or plant vigor. If you do any pruning at all above the first flower cluster on determinate tomatoes, you'll only be throwing away potential fruit.

Indeterminate tomatoes can have from one to many stems, although four is the most I'd recommend. The fewer the stems, the fewer but larger the fruits, and the less room the plant needs in the garden. For a multi-stemmed plant, let a second stem grow from the first node above the first fruit. Allow a third stem to develop from the second node above the first set fruit, and so forth. Keeping the branching as close to the first fruit as possible means those side stems will be vigorous but will not overpower the main stem.

Simple vs. Missouri pruning

There are two ways to deal with a sucker that isn't destined to become a stem. The simplest is to pinch it off entirely; not surprisingly, this is called "simple pruning." This should be done when the sucker is still small and succulent. Grab the base of it between your thumb and index finger and bend it back and forth. The sucker should snap off, producing a small wound that will heal quickly. Avoid cutting the sucker with a knife or scissors, because the resulting stump can become easily infected. Once a sucker becomes too tough and leathery to snap off, however, you'll have to use a blade. I recommend a retractable razor knife.

http://www.finegardening.com/CMS/uploadedImages/Images/kitchen_gardener/042027018_xlg.jpg

In Missouri pruning, you pinch out just the tip of the sucker, letting one or two leaves remain. The advantage is that the plant has more leaf area for photosynthesis and to protect developing fruit from sun-scald. The disadvantage is that new suckers inevitably develop along the side stems, adding to your future pruning chores.

Missouri pruning is necessary when things have gotten out of hand. When you're dealing with large suckers, it's better to pinch off just the tip than to cut off the whole thing close to the main stem. For one thing, if disease hits, it's farther away from the main stem. And for another, removing just the growing tip is less of a shock to the plant than removing a foot or so of side stem.

Suckers grow very quickly during the hot summer months. This is indeed a situation that tests one's resolve. It helps to know that side stems started this late in the season will always be spindly and produce inferior fruit. You must be heartless and tip them all.


A final pruning pays off

About 30 days before the first frost, there is one last pruning chore: The plants must be topped. The fruit that has set must be given every opportunity to mature. Removing all the growing tips directs all sugar produced by the plant to the fruit. This can be hard to do, as every gardener is reluctant to admit the season is coming to an end. However, this final pruning can make all the difference between hard, green fruits, hurriedly picked before frost, which later rot in a paper bag, and ripe, home-grown tomatoes in your Thanksgiving salad. Be tough, fight your nurturing instincts, and top those plants.

[jeffinsgf]

I don't think I've ever seen an issue with more strongly held opinions by so many different people, all of whom are supposed to be experts!

Yesterday or the day before I found the same article Alabamy quoted. I find it somewhat contradictory that he admonishes us to prune when leaves and suckers are small to minimize damage, but to prune everything up to the first fruit cluster. How do I know where the first fruit cluster will be before it appears, and once it appears, is it too late to prune the now well formed leaves and stems?

This pruning method seems quite severe, on the other hand, by the middle of the summer last year, all the leaves and stems he suggests cutting off were gone from my plants, but they withered and died, rather than being snipped.

I have two of most varieties, but three Brandywines and three German Red Strawberries. I think I'll take the puniest of the three and try this method on them. We'll see if they catch and pass their now larger, less severely pruned siblings.

[ContainerTed]

Ted, I dunno, I go to an ag school and even the ag guys say to prune them in certain ways. Some of it I believe, some of it I don't... but I do agree that letting the plant mostly 'go' will probably get you the most fruit.

Caveat: Letting the plant 'go' will also sometimes harm the plant or shade out other plants in the garden. That's part of our role as gardeners, to focus on the whole at the cost of each plant.

One thing that flies in the face of the 'natural selection' principle is seed sharing / mailing and easy transportation to new areas. We can grow a tomato here in Texas that is "designed" for Oregon's climate (also a USDA 8, albeit a much shorter season) but in the summer time it will have a pretty difficult time. It's not going to deal well with 100 degree temps, which Oregon never sees.

I do prune my strawberries ... since my plants are new. I take the suckers and try to leave only one flower per stem to get larger fruit. It seems to work pretty well so far.

Karl, I've found that most Ag schools teach from the standpoint of larger scale farming. Many are subsidized by the "Monsanto's" of the world and lesson plans are slanted toward a growing methodology that utilizes smaller groups of products to support the methodology. Not that your Ag school does that, but many do.

Your "Caveat" statement about shading might be interpreted as resulting from inadequate planning. But there are many tradeoffs when the real subject is "feeding the multitude". And I believe that is my point. Most of us are not doing commercial level growing to feed the world. So, are commercial tradeoffs still valid in the backyard, or is there another set of rules to follow. In my container garden, I can move a container to allow for more bushy plants to put out their foliage. You can't do that with in-the-ground plants.

And, like an old dog that is too rickety to hunt, strawberry plants must be replaced occasionally. Is plant replacement pruning? I don't think so.

I agree with you on your "natural selection" paragraph. It's kind of like, if you were born and raised in Nome, Alaska, you might find Miami in July a bit stressful.

One last thought for you. If a living entity can search for and find the sun, can react to nutrient and water availability, and train bees and other insects to help with its reproduction, does that mean the entity has achieved some level of, dare I say it, "intelligence"? And, if it is intelligent, does that mean it has a kind of "conscientiousness"?

Things to contemplate while munching those BLT's.

Ted

[ContainerTed]

Ted, you make "rant" a good thing.:)

Do you stake, cage, or sprawl your tomatoes? Do you prune at all? If you are container planting, do you bring them indoors and harvest into winter, or keep a plant alive for a few years?

Tomatoes are perennial. In the book Solviva by Ana Edy (my dream house), she describes 30' tomato vines fruiting in her kitchen.

BTW, people do prune strawberries, too, by removing the mother plants to keep the bed productive.

Seems to me we've always interacted with plants, guiding them in various ways. Some things are extremely human dependent, like corn.

I enjoy hearing your perspective.

Thanks. I stake and/or cage my toms to keep the leaf stems out of the dirt. I do not over-winter any large plants, but I do grow some super-dwarf cherries like Micro-Tom, Tiny Tim, and Red Robin.

I have seen the huge tomato plant at Disney World. I wonder what Ana did for sunlight?

You're right about the corn. At least today's corn needs help. But is that because of increased GMO activity. Monsanto's Hybrids are sending native Mexican corn closer to extinction by DNA contamination. But, I like corn on the cob and still buy it from the farmer's markets here.

I'm not trying to trash anybody's beliefs about their gardens. I'm just suggesting that once in while we should question the norm and try to think ourside the box. By doing so, we will either validate the norm or identify the need for changes.

Ted

[finnteara]

This last post by Alabamy is the way I have been the most sucessful with my tomatoes, even though I have let a few test tomatoes run their course after staking each year. I went to Ag School and Containter Ted is correct, it is greared toward large agri-culture farm w/ chemical additives.

Tomatoe growing has become more a cult in the US, and you knowing how American go quickly from followers to fanatics.

[G. Gordon Gumbo]

I have been avoiding this thread for days. I haven't read any of it except the last page because there have been so many topics in which the exact same arguments are made for and against pruning indeterminate tomatoes.

ContainerTed is in the middle of every thread that comes up like this one arguing from the "plant's point of view" as if a modern tomato plant, including "heirlooms" all of which were developed originally over decades of tedious breeding and selection, are somehow same as wild varieties created by G_D to grow untended by the hand of man.

The irony of this approach to tomato cultivation should be obvious. If you aren't growing wild tomatoes, then you are growing tomatoes specifically developed by humans to overproduce. Wild tomatoes grew untended by man in semi-arid coastal climates in South America. The modern, manmade indeterminate tomatoes we grow in temperate, humid North American climates become in most cases rampant vines that will become a massive overgrowth of pest and disease infested foliage. A jungle in a wire cage.

In another of these threads at Garden Web tomato forum, I pointed out that if domesticated apple trees or peach trees are left to grow without pruning in accordance with centuries of accumulated human knowledge specific to apples and peaches, the result will be scads of scaly, scabby, sorry looking fruit. That's a fact. I pointed out the same with regard to domesticated grape vines. Now Ted's school of thought may apply to wild grapes, hawthornes or some other ancient ancestors of currently domesticated fruit trees and vines, but it certainly is rather backwards and naive to think that leaving a modern food crop cultivar like tomatoes (or grapes or peaches or apples) to its own devices is advisable in most climatic and pestilence-ridden environments we encounter in North America.

Can you imagine growing unpruned indeterminate tomato vines in a greenhouse? Can you imagine trying to manage unpruned indeterminate tomato vines on a single wooden stake or iron fence post? And personally, I cannot imagine anyone thinking that growing unpruned indeterminates in a concrete wire cage will result in the highest yield of sound, high quality tomatoes. I'd like to see some data on that idea. Something more than a "Mr. Natural" approach.

I'm not an avocate of severe pruning. I'm not ignoring the fact that leaves produce sugar that is stored in the fruit and helps develop flavor. I'm not overlooking the fact that leaves shade the fruit and prevent sunscald. But I think some moderate pruning is necessary to promote plant sanitation, facilitate pest and disease control, and enable the plant to yield higher quality fruit than will result from letting the tomato vine grow all on its own with the silly notion that "nature knows best" and that "man's interference" somehow is totally misdirected.

Please keep in mind that you are growing cultivars developed by man. These are not tomatoes in their purely natural state as evolved in nature independent of man's hand. And besides, natural wild tomatoes are not indigenous to most North American climates or soils. Let's be a bit realistic about this. This is not a "Garden of Eden" issue.

GGG

[Binaryluv]

Ok I am just jumping in so be nice. I have always pruned suckers and bottom leaves on my tomato plants. My thoughts are that it does give a stronger plant. I have been really plucking my purples and I have some of the strongest trunks I have ever had this year. My last garden i did not do this and the plants did not give the growth or fruit that is coming in this year. I am just starting to be a serious gardener so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[G. Gordon Gumbo]

Okay, I've taken a few moments to speed read through the whole thread. Kelly makes the most sense with regard to indeterminate tomato vine pruning specifically, and tending other domesticated fruit and vegetable plants generally. Alabamy also has given sound observations and links to sound advice pertaining to the subject of the thread. There are still some opinions and recommendations from the "non-pruning" sector that are not backed up by good data in my opinion ... and that's just my opinion :::smile:::

GGG

[karlkatzke]

Karl, I've found that most Ag schools teach from the standpoint of larger scale farming. Many are subsidized by the "Monsanto's" of the world and lesson plans are slanted toward a growing methodology that utilizes smaller groups of products to support the methodology. Not that your Ag school does that, but many do.

My ag school goes both ways. There's a bunch of people that follow the Monsanto trend, but the horticulture program is also the home of the master gardener program and the ag extension programs in my state, many of which deal with organic and natural backyard gardening. I tend to follow the advice from the non-commercialized ends of the school; I'm lucky enough to know which is which.

Your "Caveat" statement about shading might be interpreted as resulting from inadequate planning. But there are many tradeoffs when the real subject is "feeding the multitude". And I believe that is my point. Most of us are not doing commercial level growing to feed the world. So, are commercial tradeoffs still valid in the backyard, or is there another set of rules to follow. In my container garden, I can move a container to allow for more bushy plants to put out their foliage. You can't do that with in-the-ground plants.

Define inadequate. My planning is very adequate for my raised bed garden, which is an enclosed 8x8x6 area. By planning and pruning carefully, I can obtain the optimal growth for my environment, which is to train the plants into certain shapes optimized for their sector corner of the garden.

And, like an old dog that is too rickety to hunt, strawberry plants must be replaced occasionally. Is plant replacement pruning? I don't think so.

Depends. My strawberry plants are mostly interconnected. If they're interconnected and sharing nutrients, it's pruning.

One last thought for you. If a living entity can search for and find the sun, can react to nutrient and water availability, and train bees and other insects to help with its reproduction, does that mean the entity has achieved some level of, dare I say it, "intelligence"? And, if it is intelligent, does that mean it has a kind of "conscientiousness"?

Not really. If so, then anything that's alive from an amoeba & up is 'conscious'. The problem with the argument is knowing if the plant has the choice to find the sun or not. If it makes a choice, then it's conscious and/or intelligent. If it is programmed to do the same thing every time, then it's programmed and/or evolved to do that, and it's not conscious or intelligent behavior.

There are variables that we can't see or control from our backyard-gardener point of view that go into the equation, obviously. These variables can affect the plant's programming to follow the sun and may cause the plant to wilt in ways we wouldn't expect with the inputs we know about. This doesn't make an argument for consciousness or intelligence; it's simply lack of information from the point of view of the observer .

If you make the argument that a sufficiently complicated system is conscious and intelligent, I'd like to introduce you to some of the information systems that I work with on a daily basis. They simulate 'intelligence' quite well using things like decision matrices, logical difference processing engines, and multiple-party voting, but in the end only react to the programming and are therefore not conscious because you can map the input to the output on a reliable basis. It's only when you bring the -- for lack of a better term to use -- sheer irrationality of a conscious being into play that you get the ability to add 2 + 2 and get 5. It's only when you add the brilliance of a sentient creature into play that you get the ability to glance at a column of 300 numbers and approximate the actual result with a significant degree of reliability.

(I work with computers all day in a way that makes me really feel for Skynet, the Cylons, and GLaDiOS. One of the technologies I'm working with right now is called STONITHd, which stands for "Shoot The Other Node In The Head daemon." A daemon is a unix program that runs in the background constantly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(computer_software)). The STONITH daemon is responsible for detecting when one node of a multi-node cluster has entered an unknown and/or ambiguous state or is making bad decisions, and shutting it down so that it doesn't cause problems in the predictability of results coming from the remainder of the cluster. The problem with STONITH is that it's essentially a mexcian standoff; every member of the cluster has a gun pointed at at least one other member of the cluster. When certain transitions happen, this can cause what's called a STONITH deathmatch, which is the result of every node shooting every other one at the exact same time. Like I said, I REALLY understand why computers hate humanity.)

[G. Gordon Gumbo]

KarlKatzke,

Most excellent post! Best I've seen in an online tomato board discussion on the subject you address. I guess I should never make light of Aggies again.

GO LONGHORNS!!! Sorry. Couldn't control myself.

GGG

[kellygirrl]

I agree, Redneck. It is an interesting subject to ponder.

I never heard that about grapes, that overpruning affects flavor. I used to be shocked at the heavy pruning that commercial growers including wine grape growers, subject their grapes to. A grape can cover a 30' arbor, I understand, but commercially they are pruned to a little T bar. Certainly there's plenty of reading available, about how and why to prune them. But they also live and produce when "neglected".

The question of the hour seems to be, does pruning free up energy for fruit production, or does it weaken the plant? Or both?

Oops, I missed a whole page of conversation. Not sure how that happened. I'm going to read it now. Hope this post is not redundant or non-sequitor.

[karlkatzke]

KarlKatzke,

Most excellent post! Best I've seen in an online tomato board discussion on the subject you address. I guess I should never make light of Aggies again.

GO LONGHORNS!!! Sorry. Couldn't control myself.

GGG

*grin* I'm not a real Aggie, I just work here. And I've dated a lot of women who are licensed to saw 'em off. :D

[Prudenspurple]

Well now, a most fascinating and enjoyable thread!!!:)
I do indeed believe many good points and views have been expressed. For me, myself, and I prunning out lower leaf stems and suckers to 18"-24" works very well in our hot humid conditions to allow more airflow and less soil backsplash, thus decreasing chance of diseases and blights. It seems to work for me, but then I know many folks in this area whom do not prune at all and it seems to work for them.

As for the sentient and the "plants and nature know what's best" thoughts...
Hhhmmmm...well, what can I say, but I do indeed talk and listen in return to all my plants, shrubs, and trees! I enjoy the "repour":D, and hope they do, but I would have to lodge that in the belief and enjoyment of life file instead of the fact file! (You've never heard, nor felt, a good reaming out till you've been properly "dissed" by a tomato plant!) As for "plants and nature knows best"....I would mainly buy that argument for reproduction and survival, but not necessarily for fruit taste nor size, especially for "domesticated" plants. But, as my variegated leaf, multi-colored blossom Dogwood would tell you; Each to their own and what works!

TimothyT.

[ContainerTed]

Karl. very invigorating discussion. I see your point and I understand what you are talking about with respect to the computers. My primary degree is in Computer Science and I was fortunate enough to be a test technician in the late 60's and very early 70's when the microprocessor was first developed and the first commercially available processor was available to the public. I worked in the DOD blackworld at the time. The first electronic device that could function like a microprocessor was 4 six foot tall 30" bays containing numerous drawers of circuit cards. On these circuit cards, were a matrix of 8 to 10 legged transistorized devices. Each of the devices was one Flip-Flop (what we now call loosely a "switch"). The available memory was a huge 1 kilobyte. The diagrams were printed in 23 technical manuals - each approximately 700 pages deep. The whole machine functioned like a microprocessor. The language was something like assembly, but was more batch oriented. I still have some of those devices.

I have spent most of the last 4 decades in and around computers. I still program in about 12 languages, although most of my compilers are out of date since my retirement. So, I do know a little bit about computers (always enjoyed coding the User Interface screens).

Anyhow, I have succeeded in my posts here. From what I am reading, I may have caused a few folks to think outside the box and that is always good. I wish you and the others here successes in your future adventures.

In parting, I will simply repeat my primary belief.

Nothing is so good that it can't be questioned. Questioning will either validate the entity or inspire the search for changes.

Ted

[redneckplanter]

unpruned

[redneckplanter]

unpruned

[redneckplanter]

unpruned

[Bama mater]

Rednecker, What kind of mater is that in your last post

[redneckplanter]

i believe its a pink brandy bama......;lol

[redneckplanter]

do these pics qualify as objective data for no-prune???lol.....

[redneckplanter]

??????????

[kellygirrl]

Even though pruning tomatoes makes intuitive, rational, and experiential sense to me (which method is still up for grabs), I like hearing a right-brain angle, even if it sounds left-field. Gardening should be as unique as gardeners. And I prefer not to doubt the possibility of communicating with plants.

I hope this isn't too far off-topic. My uh friend (nod to Karl for the designation) has been reading to me from Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Bahner. We call it The Book of Lies because I'm always shrieking, "Liar!" while he reads the author's wondrous assertions. He discusses the remarkable consistency of herbal/plant knowledge between native peoples across the globe. Scientists purport that this knowledge is acquired through trial-and-error, and then added to the cultural knowledge bank. I.e., someone gets bitten by a bear, and begins randomly slapping every plant in sight on the wound, hoping to discover something that cures gangrene before it kills him, and if he lives, he tells his friends. Simultaneously 1500 miles away, someone is bitten by a lion and discovers the same herb after frantically trying every plant in sight. Bahner points out how unlikely this scenario is. When asked, "How did you acquire this knowledge?", unless it was already a known usage by the tribe, the indigenous person replies, "The plant told me." And scientists say, yeah right, and continue to assert their more rational, yet highly implausible theory.

I have this secret hope that as I garden and cultivate my food forest butterfly-toad habitat in my little urban lot, that one day the plants will talk to me, too. The sage will advise 2 cups of tea for two weeks for that tickle in my throat, and the tomato will beg me not to chop its fingers off.:eek:

Thank you for a fun discussion.

[redneckplanter]

and watered overhead...breaking all the rules...lol

[kellygirrl]

Redneck! Are you publishing plant porn again?!

[redneckplanter]

i agree kelly.
fun discussion here.
as you can see my overhead watered,too tight tomato plants are doing poorly...lol
many ways to do something.and i agree our gardens probably do reflect some small portion of ourselves?
talking plants?
well my maters ai'nt cussing at me yet..lol
guess they don't realize they should be in poor health?[smile]
rnp

[SpaceAge]

I don't think I've ever seen an issue with more strongly held opinions by so many different people, all of whom are supposed to be experts!

Yesterday or the day before I found the same article Alabamy quoted. I find it somewhat contradictory that he admonishes us to prune when leaves and suckers are small to minimize damage, but to prune everything up to the first fruit cluster. How do I know where the first fruit cluster will be before it appears, and once it appears, is it too late to prune the now well formed leaves and stems?

This pruning method seems quite severe, on the other hand, by the middle of the summer last year, all the leaves and stems he suggests cutting off were gone from my plants, but they withered and died, rather than being snipped.

I have two of most varieties, but three Brandywines and three German Red Strawberries. I think I'll take the puniest of the three and try this method on them. We'll see if they catch and pass their now larger, less severely pruned siblings.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff ,

I'm thinking that you and many of the "no-prune" crowd , need to visit a Tomatoe growing facility ...

what is being "debated" is not really a questionable practice at all , ... it is a mandatory part of maintenance and insurance of fruit production ...

personally I am chuckling reading through this thread ...

hmmm ... can you imagine a Lawn Maintenance Company that argues that not mowing the lawn is better for a mowed lawn look ...??? :confused::confused::confused:

the bottom leaves of a Tomatoe are expendable ... in a greenhouse application that means 2ea sets of leaves every week up to the next sets of fruits ... in a home garden that can mean every 3 weeks or so with attention paid to protecting sunburn on the main trunk / stem.

Noone says that you have to prune your tomatoes ... heck you don't have to change the oil in your car if you don't want to ... it's a free country still ... well kind of ...:rolleyes: ... point is , if you are growing tomatoe plants for "fruit" production ... pruning can increase yields ... If you are growing pretty bushy plants , then pruning spoils that look all together .

Space'

[karlkatzke]

hmmm ... can you imagine a Lawn Maintenance Company that argues that not mowing the lawn is better for a mowed lawn look ...??? :confused::confused::confused:

Not to throw fuel on any fires or anything, but ... I mow my own lawn and leave it at least an inch longer than my neighbor's lawn. In the heat of summer, mine is still green while theirs is yellow and patchy. Their lawn service is offering an upsell -- monthly fertilizing services to help improve the health of the lawn. I don't need extra fertilizer because I use a recycling/mulching mower and I keep my lawn an appropriate length for the climate.

So yes, not mowing the lawn can actually be better for that green, sculpted look...

[Alabamy]

One last thought for you. If a living entity can search for and find the sun, can react to nutrient and water availability, and train bees and other insects to help with its reproduction, does that mean the entity has achieved some level of, dare I say it, "intelligence"? And, if it is intelligent, does that mean it has a kind of "conscientiousness"?


I think this calls for a Tomato Turning Test! :p

[RozieDozie]

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff ,

I'm thinking that you and many of the "no-prune" crowd , need to visit a Tomatoe growing facility ...

what is being "debated" is not really a questionable practice at all , ... it is a mandatory part of maintenance and insurance of fruit production ...

personally I am chuckling reading through this thread ...

hmmm ... can you imagine a Lawn Maintenance Company that argues that not mowing the lawn is better for a mowed lawn look ...??? :confused::confused::confused:

the bottom leaves of a Tomatoe are expendable ... in a greenhouse application that means 2ea sets of leaves every week up to the next sets of fruits ... in a home garden that can mean every 3 weeks or so with attention paid to protecting sunburn on the main trunk / stem.

Noone says that you have to prune your tomatoes ... heck you don't have to change the oil in your car if you don't want to ... it's a free country still ... well kind of ...:rolleyes: ... point is , if you are growing tomatoe plants for "fruit" production ... pruning can increase yields ... If you are growing pretty bushy plants , then pruning spoils that look all together .

Space'

Greenhouse growing is different, whether you are growing in soil or growing in water. It's labor intensive and has to be because there is a space limitation. It's also very expensive to grow tomatoes that way. It uses lots of energy, too.

I'm not saying that's the 'wrong way' to grow tomatoes, just saying it's a very different method than field/garden growing.

I grew tomatoes commercially for years. Not in a green house or tomato growing facility, but outside, in several gardens, in soil.....

No pruning did we do except for the initial early pruning to keep the bottom leaves off the ground. We reached that decision after lots of trial and error and extensive record keeping, i.e., production, taste tests and weighing individual tomatoes.....

For a commercial grower, man/woman power and the cost of pruning has to be factored in, and we found that paying someone to prune our tomatoes cut WAAAY down on our profit margin. We also noticed that, left to their own devices, our tomatoes sometimes even pruned themselves by dropping excess leaves to allow for airflow.

We grew wonderful tomatoes most of the time (tomatoes here are a gamble for just about everyone) and we made money, too. The business is still making money.

I've been enjoying this thread a lot because, again, it shows that all gardeners are individuals and there are different styles of gardening.

Sure, there are some 'best practices', but, as Redneckplanter has demonstrated with his pictures, even overhead watering works for some people. If I did overhead watering my tomatoes would surely die from disease.

And yes, I talk to my plants; more importantly, I 'listen' to them. So there! ;)

Thanks, everyone, for sharing what you do and for the pictures.

[redneckplanter]

lol kg
yep the good stuff..lol...pure ...plant picture goodness....
lol rozie...thanks for the plug......i just figgure [again on ted's line of thinking] ....go natural.
simulated rain?good for plants?

[Wind Dancer]

and watered overhead...breaking all the rules...lol

Ah, yes...rules. Has anyone discovered how to keep the clouds from randomly
providing 'overhead watering'? And even after dark, at that.

Wind Dancer

[SpaceAge]

Greenhouse growing is different, whether you are growing in soil or growing in water. It's labor intensive and has to be because there is a space limitation. It's also very expensive to grow tomatoes that way. It uses lots of energy, too.

I'm not saying that's the 'wrong way' to grow tomatoes, just saying it's a very different method than field/garden growing.

I grew tomatoes commercially for years. Not in a green house or tomato growing facility, but outside, in several gardens, in soil.....

No pruning did we do except for the initial early pruning to keep the bottom leaves off the ground. We reached that decision after lots of trial and error and extensive record keeping, i.e., production, taste tests and weighing individual tomatoes.....

For a commercial grower, man/woman power and the cost of pruning has to be factored in, and we found that paying someone to prune our tomatoes cut WAAAY down on our profit margin. We also noticed that, left to their own devices, our tomatoes sometimes even pruned themselves by dropping excess leaves to allow for airflow.

We grew wonderful tomatoes most of the time (tomatoes here are a gamble for just about everyone) and we made money, too. The business is still making money.

I've been enjoying this thread a lot because, again, it shows that all gardeners are individuals and there are different styles of gardening.

Sure, there are some 'best practices', but, as Redneckplanter has demonstrated with his pictures, even overhead watering works for some people. If I did overhead watering my tomatoes would surely die from disease.

And yes, I talk to my plants; more importantly, I 'listen' to them. So there! ;)

Thanks, everyone, for sharing what you do and for the pictures.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK ,

That does it ... I'm piping in Barry White Music through the P.A. system !!!

[SpaceAge]

... of course then , ... one has to ask ... "why do you have a PA system in your Tomatoe patch "


DOH !:eek:

[kellygirrl]

... of course then , ... one has to ask ... "why do you have a PA system in your Tomatoe patch "


DOH !:eek:

Our local 80 head dairy plays eastern music for the cows, and they do Reiki on them.:):):)

[redneckplanter]

lol dancer exactly.....

[karlkatzke]

I leave the radio on for my dogs. They complain if I don't leave it set to country music, though, and then they stop responding to anything NOT said in a Texas twang.

[w8in4dave]

alot of people around here leave radio's on in their barn just to keep critters out.. It seems to work. we don't. But then again we don't have feed and such so ... No critters ...