Topic: tomato plants- to pinch or not to pinch

[shaolin101]

is there a general time to pinch out - mine are just getting quite a few flowers if thats any indication - this is the first time i have grown tomatoes and have no idea what type they are but are about 18 inches tall.

I still have no idea on what ones to take off - even though i have seen the other posts!

would it do anything if i didn't do it - or just less tomatoes

[clara]

Thankyou to EVERYONE.   Roy BAMuk - now i know about the archives.  Philcooper thankyou for introducing the empirical idea of 50/50.  Charlotte sometimes thanks for the idea of improving yield (rather than ruining the crop) and for searching the literature.   I think I will relax about it now, sounds like I won't have disaster if I pinch or disaster if I don't!  And next year I will remember to record properly the varieties of seeds I plant.

[Roy Bham UK]

 :o Clara :o Please don't answer in red type again as I thought your blood pressure had risen to a dangerous level :o and was worried about you :'(

[john_miller]

Piglottie, Remove the side shoot, or you're crop will be delayed a long time (and if it's outside, the fruit may not ripen before the frosts)

Phil

  I'm not sure where this information is coming from but ripening is almost an entirely phenological response, by genotype, with the removal of side shoots having very little bearing upon the rate it happens and may largely be explained by the increased exposure to light which will in turn become heat. Heat will speed up the physiological process but the effect is marginal. In a not very scientific test I did years ago, involving the cv. 'Jet Star', plants that were not pruned or trained at all, i.e., were allowed to sprawl across the ground, ripened about a week later then plants subjected to rigourous cordon training.
  Before anyone ruins their crop I would like to pass on some reading I did in college. To assess the effects of pruning side shoots on indeterminate cvs. researchers experimented with removing all the side shoots except the side shoot below each truss. The side shoot immediately below each truss is attached to the same vascular tissue as the truss. As with any plant the fruit attracts more nutrients to it than any other part of the plant so this side shoot has more nutrition available to it (which is why it will grow larger than other side shoots). In this experiment leaving only these shoots to grow out resulted in a 50% reduction in yield (due to a reduction in fruit size and count caused by the competition for nutrients) compared to a control planting where pruning was as normally done. This was on plants of a genotype suitable for greenhouse growing, but may br true for outdoors ones too, in the U.K. and may not hold true for substantially different genotypes- the majority of tomatoes grown in the U.S are allowed to sprawl, as I do, and yields can be phenomenal and more than economically offset the later ripening.
 

[tim]

COR!!

You couldn't resist that one, John - could you??

[Roy Bham UK]

 ;D Welcome back John ;D were your ears burning? ;D

[tim]

Well, you can but try!!

A while ago, I said that the sideshoots on my Palla were immediately flower trusses. So, I decided to leave them, to see if they gave a extra trusses low down.

Big mistake!!

[Piglottie]

I'm glad I've mainly got bush tomatoes (although they are looking a little sad at the moment with curled leaves and slightly blotchy leaves  ??? ).  Anyway, previously mentioned cordon tomato is now duly snipped (ouch!) of its side shoot so we shall see what happens.   :)

[philcooper]

.......generally, the consensus is to pinch out so that the plant devotes energy to making fruit. HOWEVER, there seems to be an idea that you do not pinch out the 'first' side shoot, allowing it to develop into a proper second stem. you pinch out all the side shoots from there on in, on both stems, but will end up with double the amount of fruit as both stems will start to flower at about the same time (but obviously twice the amount of flowers as on two stems). kind of a 'buy one get one free' scenario...........svea

We need to be clear that we are only talking about plants grown outside.

Pinching out the top of a cordon grown in the green house is done when you want to ensure that the fruits ripen before the daylength is too short and the temp too low.

Pinching out before will produce bushy growth which will prevent light getting to the fruits to ripen them.

I have only used pinching out of outdoor cordons to (try to) ensure that the fruit ripen so it's around the beginning of September.

Phil

[john_miller]

Other than the record breaking heat this June Roy (guess what- there's more coming your way!) my ears haven't been burning. Should they have been? I hope your tropicals have been enjoying the heat as much as mine have been?

[Svea]

phil, i think we were talking about pinching out of side shoots?

i agree with you about the pinching out of the 'grow spot' on the top though :)

svea

[philcooper]

Svea,

I was talk about the top - "stopping" in chrysanthemum/dahlia speak - I hjadn't realised the conversation was on side shoots.

As I don't stop cordons until late in the season and don't touch bushes, I hadn't even considered pinching out side shoots

Phil

[gardenqueen]

Whilst in Majorca, I noticed that in some areas, ( smallholdings) that tomatoes were left to grow along the ground  on straw. I doubt if the sideshoots were taken off and the crops looked very healthy.

[philcooper]

  I'm not sure where this information is coming from but ripening is almost an entirely phenological response, .....

John,

I missed (don't know how) your exposee on tomato ripening

But the point I was trying to make was not that pinching affects ripening of mature fruit but that letting the plants expend energy of side shoots reduces the speed at which the formed fruits mature - loose wording on my part!

Welcome back

Phil