what will be more effective in terms of yields per space

Unpruned gives you more production by far. It would be impossible for a single-stem plant to match the production of multi-stems much less come close to that of an unpruned plant.

Literally hundreds of discussions about this question over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato forum

If doing single stem winding them vertically up a string looks like a good option I want to try- look up "string trellis for tomatoes".

I prefer staking my tomatoes. It is much easier to get to them than caging them. They are hard to prune and harvest when they are caged.

Hello seysonn,
season isb't really a problem for me, this year we only hha three nights of frost, and it was the coldest winter in the past 12 years.. so what is the recommended spacing if not pruning the plant?
Thabks!

I have to agree with Dave. I've grown tomatoes for 20 years in cages made from a re-mesh panels. Unpruned plants yield way more good large tomatoes.It is true you end up with more green ones but who cares. You harvest more red tomatoes all season.

@ drscott,

No doubt you can get more tomatoes per plant if you do not prune it at all. But at the same time you will use almost three as much garden space. I grow mine in average 3 sq-ft per plant ( 21" by 21" or 18" by 24"). The widely recomended spacing for un pruned indet plant is 3ft by 3ft , that adds up to 9 sq-ft per plant. In the same(9 sq-ft) space I can plant 3 tomatoes and harvest more fruits than a single plant of the same variety. I have read some market growers use about the same spacing in their high tunnel. Because space is a valuable resource and you want to maximize your returns.

But in the end of the day, we do what we do and we have our reason, whether biased or based on logic.

That's what I asked in the original post, I asked what would yield more per space, so if I have 1 tomato plant with multiple stems in 4 sqft (and not 9 sqft seysonn, look it up under "Indeterminate" here: http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/tomatoes/), and 4 tomato plants that grow with 1 stem in 1 sqft each, where will I get more yields by the end of the day?

and 4 tomato plants that grow with 1 stem in 1 sqft each

You would not have 1 sq. foot each. The minimum recommendation for even a single stem plant is 2 sq. foot.

So the comparison would be 2 plants (not 4) vs. 1 plant and the 1 unpruned plant would still win the production challenge.

Again, as I suggested above, this is frequently discussed over on the Growing Tomatoes forum and many of those discussions include links to documented studies done on this very question rather than just personal opinions.

Please understand that much of the pruning done by its advocates is for aesthetic reasons only, for appearance, for garden eye-appeal, and for convenience for the gardener. It is not done for the benefit of the plant or for production,

They may live in a climate where sunscald of exposed fruit is not an issue. For you, and for us in the south, sunscald of exposed fruit is a very real problem. And given the predominance of some of the diseases we in hot climates have to deal with, the health of the plant so it can better resist those disease is vital. Drastically reduce the photosynthesis ability of the plant by pruning it aggressively can easily reduce its over-all health.

That is a lesson many of us have had to learn the hard way over many years.

A caged or staked or trellised plant grown in the proper spacing can still be lightly pruned as needed - any branches that touch the ground, any large leaflet branches that block access to the fruit can be trimmed back or removed, and late season sprouting suckers or bloom rellis can be pinched off, etc. But that in no way justifies radical pruning.

Dave

This post was edited by digdirt on Thu, Jan 23, 14 at 11:57

I'd love to see a picture of your mesh cages. I was thinking of the metal ones when I made my comment.

OK, thanks a lot Dave! I'll go with the standard method.