i am very surprised there isnt a tomato forum.. those peeps are nuts .. lol ...

presuming you are north of the equator.. why are you already ready to reduce your output?? .. will you be competing???

ken

No I just read an article about flower pruning, plus the first flowers never produce fruit so why not?

I am not saying that is correct but it got me thinking. That and another post about days to harvest, everyone said it starts from transplanting, so that means first several flowers will produce no fruit.

My first tomato flowers produce fruits (see pic below). Some of the first fruits may not be perfect (catfacing) but most are a-ok. It would be best to remove the deformed fruits after blooming time rather than to remove the flowers first. If no fruits form from your first flowers then it may be due to cold temps during bloom time.

My First cluster of this season...there was no catfacing (so far) so none were removed.

btw, there is a tomato growing forum here...

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/growing-tomatoes

It's understood that tomatoes can flower well before the plant is mature enough to support lots of fruit. So first flowers are often removed to allow that maturation to happen. No question that first flowers CAN produce fruit, but those fruit may not grow well.

I can see the logic in that Dan, have heard the same practice is used for pepper plants. In my case I typically re-pot my tomato plants twice before planting in the ground so they have a well developed root system. Once planted they bloom about 10 days later and keep producing well for the rest of the season (unless blight hits them). My main goal for those first blooms to get a jump on harvesting some extra early tomatoes by about 2-3 weeks.