Topping Tomato Plants
The main reason to prune tomato plants is that it helps your plant direct its energy toward producing fruit rather than producing more foliage.
Topping tomato plants. Why pruning might help. This fruit is forced to compete with growing stalks for the sugar plants create through photosynthesis and nutrients absorbed through the soil. Tomatoes are not one of those plants that require pruning or deadheading in order to thrive but shrewd pruning can improve the quality of the fruit you harvest.
By doing this it allows more of the plant s energy to be directed at. Unpruned foliage will eventually grow into new branches that will form fruit but most experienced growers advise that tomatoes should be pruned to not only produce. Share it with friends or family or just increase your tomato stock.
Here s our article sharing the top ten. Do this about four weeks before the first expected fall frost date. I provide detailed instructions how to perform topping.
Your new tomato plant will have exactly the same characteristics of the plant you prune it from so it s a brilliant way to clone a plant you particularly love. If you d like to grow a brand new tomato plant from the suckers you prune off then you can do that. Fertilizing your tomatoes.
Tomato topping benefits plants by redirecting sugars and nutrients. Toward the end of the annual growth cycle tomato plants still bear fruit that is not fully mature. For determinate tomato plants these can be planted anywhere between 2 to 2 5 feet 60 75cm apart spacing rows of plants apart by around 4 feet 120cm.
Clone your tomato plant from cuttings. Pruning tomato plants is an optional technique that some gardeners use to keep plants tidy manipulate fruit size and even speed ripening. For indeterminate tomato plants grown using stakes they will be fine planted 1 5 to 2 feet 45 60cm apart and if you re using tomato cages keep the distance about 2 5 3 feet 75 90cm apart.
You should only prune indeterminate varieties which produce new leaves and flowers continuously through the growing season. Topping the plant before it grows too tall top the tomato plant when it grows to the top of its cage or stake. Here s our tutorial showing the entire process.
There is one big catch. The spacing for tomato plants depends on the type of tomato plant and how you want it to grow namely structured or unstructured growth. Don t prune your cherry tomatoes.
Not pruning tomato plants for maximum yield. Plant smart living w farmer fred detwiler 190 775 views.
