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zuni_gw

Pinching tomato seedlings

zuni
15 years ago

I have started tomatoes from seed, and they are about 8 inches tall now. Should they be pinched back? When and how often?

Comments (5)

  • jimster
    15 years ago

    Pinching back is done to promote branching, which is not what you want with tomatoes. Some gardeners even cut off all side branches (suckers).

    An alternative would be to repot into taller pots, placing the plants as deeply as possible. Tomotoes readily form roots all along the stem and will benefit from this.

    Are they getting enough light? Lots of light will help to keep them from growing tall and spindly.

    Now I have a question for someone who knows more than I about tomatoes. Why is it that we grow tomatoes straight up and not pinch them to make them bushy? I know that's what everyone, including commercial growers, do. But why?

    Jim

  • digdirt2
    15 years ago

    zuni - Please don't pinch your tomato plants. ;) Do as Jim suggested and transplant them deeper if need and provide more light. It is the lack of enough light that is making them get leggy.

    As a general rule of thumb, pinching is for flowers, and only for certain kinds of those. With few exceptions, pinching in the usual sense is not applicable to vegetable plants.

    Dave

  • Beeone
    15 years ago

    Perhaps there is a reason not to pinch them back, but I've never heard you shouldn't until now.

    To keep them from getting so leggy, follow the advice above--more light, replant into deeper pots. You can also keep them at a cooler temperature as that seems to help a bit by slowing their growth, and finally give them some breeze or movement to help promote strength and thickening of the stems.

    Several years ago I was given some tomatoes which were started in January. By late April, they were about 2 feet high and doing well, but much too big. So, I cut them off a little under a foot tall and put the tops in a big jar of water. By the end of May when they went out to the garden, the original plants had all grown branches and were doing great, plus the tops in water all had a mass of roots which I planted also, so I had double the plants. The advantage from planting so early seemed that I had ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July instead of mid-late August.

    If you have small, leggy seedlings, let them grow and give them more light and not too much heat. If they are getting really tall, I see no reason not to pinch them back and let them branch. After all, once in the garden, they will branch out anyway. P.S. I'm not a tomato pruner. They do great branching out all they want in the garden and I just tie them to a fence I put up to support the plants and keep the tomatoes off the ground.

    Good luck!

  • paveggie
    15 years ago

    Note to Jimster -- growing plants upright is just a choice.

    Some factors are space and keeping plants off ground to reduce disease and/or rotting of fruit. So, gardens got smaller and gardeners grew them upright. Better air circulation, less splashing of foliage, and sometimes larger individual fruits.

    Native tomatoes sprawl on the ground -- that's the nature of the beast. My mother always let hers sprawl. The yield was OK, sometimes harder to pick, sometimes rotting in wet weather, and sometimes turtles would come and have lunch, too. I grow mine in cages. My choice.

    So, gardens got smaller and gardeners grew them upright. Better air circulation, less splashing of foliage, and sometimes larger individual fruits.

    In most fresh market commercial plantings, grown on stakes or "string" trellis, plants are pinched and/or suckered so there are only 2 or 3 shoots allowed to grow.

    I think some commercial processing types used to be trimmed pretty heavily to promote stronger root growth. (Don't know if they still do that or not.) Because most of these are determinate types for the concentrated maturity, they are a bushy plant.

  • digdirt2
    15 years ago

    Why? Think of how they grow. First "pinching" of a young seedling and pruning of an established plant aren't the same thing and have different effects on the plant. Whether or not pruning of an established plant is beneficial is a whole other can of worms. ;)

    Indet. varieties like other vines are woody stem plants with 1 terminal growing/blooming/fruit producing tip. None of the rest of the regular branches will produce fruit.

    Pinch/cut/break, accidently or on purpose, that terminal tip off, the plant will eventually grow sucker branches (V-stem side shoots) - it does that normally as it matures. These suckers will turn into secondary growing tips and will eventually produce fruit. But just like any secondary stems that sprout from the root, these are secondary not primary stems so they are subject to second-class, support, nutrient/water/supplies and production. They are the exit ramps to the gravel road from the interstate highway so to speak.

    Sucker branches will produce fruit but it is often smaller and it is later to develop and the weight of the fruit can easily cause the sucker branch to snap off.

    So why would you want to "terminate" that primary growing tip? Just to get a "bushier plant? If bushy plants are your goal, then grow determinate varieties.

    Det. varieties have multiple primary stems and terminal growing tips that will produce fruit. Pinch/trim/break one of them off the others will still produce just fine. But pinch or prune off too many of them and you reduce overall production of the plant. Since the point is production of fruit it pays to understand the nature of the variety you are growing.

    Dave

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