Topic: Step-by-Step Photos of pinching out tomatoes????

[realfood]

I do not quite agree with what is shown on video-jug. I start to remove the side shoots in the leaf axils (not the flowering shoots) as soon as they appear. I also allow the leader to continue as long as possible on cherry tomatoes, so that I can continue cropping as long as possible, often into November. When the plant is finished, I harvest the unripe toms and place in a sunny window to ripen till Jan or even Feb.

[tim]

The Video is fine on 'pinching ou't - he does take out the tiniest shoots.

I, too, leave 'stopping' much later, but there's no point in delaying with no hope of the saved trusses forming worthwhile fruit.

[realfood]

Just saw Gardening World tonight, and they showed how to do it quite well. If you missed it, you can view it on i-player. The flower buds do not grow from the leaf axils, but directly from the stem, so there is no chance of mixing up the two types of shoots.

[dtw]

Removing side shoots may reduce overall tomato harvest. In fact, in a study by Purdue University, and published in Organic Gardening Magazine, scientists found that removing side shoots was shown to increase the average fruit weight some of the time but did not increase the total harvest for each individual plant.

http://www.grow-tomato-sauce.com/pruning.html

So you get less tomatoes, not more.

What's wrong with letting them grow naturally anyway?

[Vinlander]

If the axil shoots are mere mm long then you rub them out, if they are more than 30mm long then break them off cleanly - they make good cuttings and will root easily in damp compost.

If they are more than 100mm long they will root but need the biggest leaves removing and a plastic bag cover. The 300mm ones I find occasionally (amongst scores of plants) need burying for 80% of their length to make them root - but you can lay them sideways with a brick over them.

When cuttings are taken from a plant that is still growing strongly they are only very slightly delayed. It's only when the plant gets past 600mm tall that the delay becomes significant. Then you might find you don't get fruit until blight is in full spate.

[Jeannine]

Just seen this,, great video but only for indeterminate ( vine) tomatoes, don't do it to determinate(bush)
ones or you will lose  most of your fruit.

XX Jeannine