Note, that Ive been practicing pruning up to the first leaf branch under the terminal growing tip, and the first fruit truss and anything under it, that is, until it reaches the trellis, at which point i will let it grow from that point unpruned. This is a technique that supposedly will increase the yield dramatically to tune of 40lbs a plant but later in the season.

This "sounds" like some of that "Organic Magic" book/website pruning and its claims. Is it? If not, what is the source of this claim?

Otherwise, need to see a picture please.

Dave

In response to your question, I'll side with Dave in that it's hard to say anything definitive without seeing a picture.

As for the claim you read about pruning: I'll never get why I see all these claims that pruning increases yields and invigorates plants. Controlled pruning - with any plant, not just tomatoes - just redirects plant energy in the best case scenario; It does not "invigorate" them as I've also seen claimed. There are entire books on the subject of pruning and redirecting plant growth energy - most of the ones I've read relate to bonsai, since pruning is a central concept.

Cutting off suckers and leaves takes some energy away initially and then causes the plant to put it's energy into other areas such as flower, leaf, or fruit development, but... suckers do produce flowers and fruit - something left out of most pruning guides. Each sucker you prune is one less flower / fruit truss you will see. Also, the sugars in the fruit are developed by the leaves via photosynthesis, so removing too much of the vegetative growth may actually impact fruit quality.

The only way I can imagine that you could potentially increase yields is to prune strategically toward the end of your growing season so that you get the last bit of energy devoted to maturing and ripening the last of your fruits before frost - since any suckers and flowers are not likely to mature in time anyways.

There are other, more valid, reasons to prune and those reasons may relate to your choice with regards to the method of support (ex: staking, trellising, etc.), but I would never expect any pruning strategy to increase yields, especially by upwards 40lbs. per plant.

My source is a farmer in Orland, CA youtube videos "Growing Tomatoes for Health and Wealth" there are 14 parts I think....
He gets approx 40lbs per plant, and prunes up to the terminal bud twice. He always removes the first fruit truss and anything below it.

Yeah I thought it sounded familiar. ;(

All I will say is that his video series is just another of the many hype sites he runs out there pushing a product - his book called Organic Gardening Magic - which has been discussed and refuted in great detail here numerous times. I don't know if any of the previous discussions remain or not but at one time there were so many of them that Bartok posted a lengthy rebuttal here.

So good luck.

As to your plant, without seeing it and going just on your description, then I would guess what you have is what I call a stunted plant for want of a better label. Stunted as in no growing tip. What may have caused it to stunt is any body's guess but if that is the case you'll get nothing further from it unless it sends up a new stem from the root ball so while there is time you may want to replace it.

Dave

omg...are you kidding about bartok? well he sold it quite well in his videos, the concept of pruning first fruit truss and anything below...

ive removed the first fruit truss on every plant recently and all leaves and suckers below it, and at initial transplant, buried plants up to first true leaves.... the plants are all quite stocky and healthy looking but are only maybe 18inches tall.

dave, can you please find his rebuttal? i cannot find it, searching for bartok or organic gardening magic etc

UPDATE....
The plant now has four or five fruit trusses and maybe 15 set fruit, and now a new terminal bud decided to grow from one of the tips of a fruit truss !!!! Note that this plant the original leaf branch leaves have curled, and that this plant has quadruple the amount of fruit set than any other tomato plants nearby. Note that I beleive I inadvertently pruned off the terminal bud at transplant time... Here is the photo... sorry that it is sideways.
http://photos.gardenweb.com/garden/galleries/2010/06/mutant_tomato_plant.html?cat=great_vegetables

{{gwi:1343249}}

After seeing your carefully pruned plant, I decided to show you one of my "carful NOT to prune plants". This is one part of the plant, but the day last week that I took this picture, it had 40 tomatoes on it (probably more by now).

Oops, no pic. 2nd try.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I tried to prune consistently, but I think this mutant plant I clipped the terminal bud. Im gonna get the exact count of the fruits and flowers on it, vs the two immediate plants next to it, and will post tonight tomorrow...

In the meanntime, I hope Dave and homegardenpa chime in, because this plant may truly make a case for pruning at a certain time, or maybe this plant over the entire season won't produce any more than the ones next to it, but just earlier.

I sell everglades swamp water for $108.00 a gal plus shipping thats guaranteed to wet the leaves on your plant once applied. Good luck Diclemeg.
Plant em if you got em.
Sam

soonergrandmom, yours looks like cherry tomatoes so you'd get a ton of them anyway, pruning or not.

Cluster Goliath

Soonergrandmom- from my experience your photo looks like a carefully pruned plant despite what you say it is, as the give away is that all your fruit trusses are placed on the central main stem one after the other all the way up the stem,on un-pruned plants the fruit trusses are generally all over the plant in different places on the various branches.

The photo that you provided looks exactly like all my fully pruned plants do and I personally have been growing them that way for over forty years.

Soonergrandmom- from my experience your photo looks like a carefully pruned plant despite what you say it is, as the give away is that all your fruit trusses are placed on the central main stem one after the other all the way up the stem,on un-pruned plants the fruit trusses are generally all over the plant in different places on the various branches.

The photo that you provided looks exactly like all my fully pruned plants do and I personally have been growing them that way for over forty years.

mickyfunn6777 - If you could see the entire plant, you would certainly know that it is not a pruned plant. In our Oklahoma heat, I want all of the leaf cover that I can possibly get, so I don't prune, nor do I remove suckers.

I have not grown Cluster Goliath before, but I understand the tomatoes grow to 4 or 5 onces at maturity. This plant is loaded. The picture has two trusses showing, but they are not on the same stem. The plant is growing on a cattle panel and the early branches were weaved through the panel as it grew to help hold the mass of branches that were sure to come. I pulled the leaf cover back enough to take the picture.

"In the meanntime, I hope Dave and homegardenpa chime in, because this plant may truly make a case for pruning at a certain time, or maybe this plant over the entire season won't produce any more than the ones next to it, but just earlier."

Ok, so there are three points I'd like to address.

1.) The plant in the picture does have a few good fruit trusses, but it would have gotten those eventually - and then some - without pruning. As you suggested, pruning suckers and leafy growth will get you tomatoes sooner, but at the cost of a larger plant - which would produce better tomatoes, and probably more overall.

2.) In looking at the picture I see a plant that has a lot of fruit started and is clearly focusing it's energy on producing fruit, but it clearly looks stressed - as is indicated by the leaf roll on most of the larger leaves.

3.) "He gets approx 40lbs per plant...": Ok, so "getting 40lbs per plant" and "increasing yields by 40lbs per plant" are completely different things. I don't prune and on most varieties get way more than 40lbs of tomatoes per plant over a season. Heck, my pink brandywines are notorious for being late season and not being big producers - and I still get close to that amount from them.

I stick by what I mentioned earlier - pruning is not magic - it just redirects plant energy. You redirected the plants energy into developing fruit which means you will get fruit sooner, but it remains to be seen how good the fruit will turn out. There are very few leaves on the plant - the part responsible for developing the sugars in the fruit and shielding the fruit from the sun scald. Fruit are very expensive creations, as far as plant resources go, so limiting the leaves and having small plants loaded with tomatoes they can barely support seems like a bad idea.

Pruning can get you earlier tomatoes and pruning has merits for people growing under certain conditions with short growing seasons and / or limited space, but it's far from a magic bullet for productivity. Very limited early season pruning can get you some earlier tomatoes, and moderate mid to late season pruning can get you some more ripe fruit before the last frost, but anything else isn't doing much good at all, imo.

homegardenpa.... thanks for the effort of your writeup, and it was well-written.

i think in the future i will stick to no pruning at all, though i do have a question.. what about after the plant gets at least three feet, to prune the leaves within the first eight inches or so to supposedly prevent disease due to contact with soil and have good air flow at the ground level ??

Yes, pruning the lower branches is a common practice endorsed by a lot of people and is done mostly to help limit onset of foliage diseases like early blight and others due to soil splashing up on the leaves. It also has the added advantage of allowing you to water near the base of the plant without wetting the leaves - another disease preventing practice.

Some people actually prune all foliage up to the just below the first flower truss when the plant reaches three feet, and that is usually higher up than 8 inches, though it depends obviously. I don't do this personally, but many swear by it and have good results from it; I slowly prune off lower leaves that are touching or close to touching the ground as the plant matures. This usually ends up being clearing the foliage about 1 foot or more off the ground when the plants are about 4 feet tall.

If you are planning to do the no-prune approach, I highly recommend getting or making some heavy duty tomato cages or looking up info about the Florida-weave style of support. As you probably have seen from pruning tomatoes can send off lots of suckers and leafy growth; if you let a tomato grow as it wants to, you'll need to have something strong enough to hold the weight of the plant when loaded with fruit.

In the question of pruning. We are hitting 110 degree days and my plants look horrible despite shade. Should I prune back for fall growth or just limp along?
I'm starting some new plants for fall, just in case. Assume that those should be early maturing types?
I'd like to plant some for putting up sauce this fall. What would be a heavy producing sauce type?

I did this pruning thing one year and got very excited at the initial response from the plants. I think at first the plant goes into overdrive thinking it's dying but after a a couple few weeks it loses steam (no leaves for photosynthesis) and my joy turned to chagrin. I found that plants really do need their leaves--they are there for a reason. Ahhh well, live and learn.

I gotta say one thing... At transplanting, I stripped all the leaves except the top leaves and terminal bud, and planted the entire plant maybe 95% below ground, whereby only the plant looked like a 3-in diameter weed and had at least a foot of the stem underground, and the plants are extremely vigorous and stocky . I have some stems that are and inch and a half thick right now AND four feet tall and fruiting like mad.

I am convinced what homegardenpa and dave said about not pruning oustide of initial transplantation, but this burying transplant pruning thing, I gotta say is a good thing to do. Homegardenpa, what are your thoughts on this ????

Yes, I always plant deep when I plant my seedlings, I don't strip off the leaves to the terminal bud per say, but I do strip off all leaves that would be buried and I strip off any leaves that would be sitting on the ground level once planted. I try to keep leaf pruning to minimum since the leaves help build plant energy and I try to only prune what I feel is needed, nothing else - since I want to avoid shocking or stunting the plant.

I usually dig a hole about a 8-12" deep (depending on the size of the seedling) and sink the tomato seedling to the bottom of the hole. I've always had good results with this approach. It gives them deep roots and they'll grow more roots along the buried portion of the stem. Some people swear by trenching - laying the stem in a shallow trench instead of a deep hole; I can see the merits of something like this, though I've never tried it personally.