GH Tomato Growing Strategies

9 years ago

I was hoping to get some feedback from other GH tomato growers on this question:

I have been growing GH tomatoes for ~ 10 years now. Up until this year, it was done in a 8x18' GH with somewhat limited space. Back in the early years, I experimented with different pruning styles. I tried the recommended spacing (2-3' between plants) and heavy side shoot pruning and got OK but not great yields. I then slid into a more "hands off" approach, with wider spacing and more or less letting the plants "do their thing" with minimal pruning.

My experience back then was that yields for the hands off approach were several times greater, although there was significantly more work in "cleaning up" from some of the overcrowding and disease issues that the massive plants would get, especially near the soil. On several years we got 100's of pounds of tomatoes, very literally, from 3 plants. Gave a lot away and made tons of sauce and salsa.

Well now I am reconsidering this approach. The messy, letting the plants do their own thing way has some drawbacks in the long run. And I now have a newer, bigger GH to grow tomatoes in.

So here is my question. Is there a better method of GH tomato growing that I should adopt for the big GH?

It seems to me that heavy pruning and 2' spacing does not really maximize yields in a GH (never did understand why commercial GHs use it). The big sprawl does work, but has some drawbacks too. I was considering a middle ground between the two. Perhaps 3-4' spacing, with say 3-4 main stems, and stripping foliage from the lowest 2' of the plant. Does this sound reasonable?

I am curious if any of the other GH tomato growers have experimented with this and what they came up with.

TIA

Comments (3)

CanadianLori
9 years ago
I start my tomatoes in the greenhouse then move them outside and I do not prune them. I actually crowd them and make sure I feed them well. My three roma plants provided us with the base for fresh bruschetta most of the summer and well into the fall.
I do not preserve them so don't have any input for those looking to can/freeze.
renais1
9 years ago
I also have experimented with different spacing for tomatoes over the many years I've grown them in the greenhouse. I find that if I have the plants 3-4 ft. apart, I get massive growth with lots more tomatoes per plant than if I use closer spacing. They still form a solid wall of growth down the row. In this kind of planting, I do absolutely no pruning; the plant grows to a support about 10' above the ground, and down again as it grows. I use sisal twine with clips to support the plants. It is a bit of a pain to harvest the top tomatoes, but it can be done. I experimented as well with the closer spacing of plants, with strict controls on their growth. While I got less yield per plant, I got quite a bit more yield per square foot of growing area; the yield per square foot is what is driving commercial greenhouses in their spacing. I also found that I had very few defective tomatoes when planting with the close spacing and strict controls. In contrast, I do get some tomatoes with odd shapes or different sizes when growing the big sprawl. I am curious about what you perceived as the drawbacks of the big sprawl growth of tomatoes. For me, the biggest drawback was probably the increased difficulty finding all the tomatoes, and harvesting them. It was also a challenge to remove a single plant in a row if it had issues. Just for perspective, my new seedlings in the greenhouse are spaced about 2-3 feet apart, and I plan to let them mostly sprawl; maybe I'll prune a little.
Renais
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steve333_gw
Original Author
9 years ago
Renais, thanks, your explanation makes sense.

I suppose if one was trying to maximize yield of perfect tomatoes the commercial method would indeed make sense. Although it does seem wasteful to not make much use of all that vertical space.

I don't care if some (even the majority) of my crop is "imperfect" since it is mostly hand processed not eaten fresh. The sprawl method does seem to make better use of all the vertical space in the GH. But it does make harvesting harder, especially with my new 12' ceiling. And if you ever have a disease or bug problem, it can make spraying all surfaces quite hard to do.