Tomatoes

[Alastair]

Hi. My greenhouse tomatoes are coming on really well, but I have a question concerning the removal of leaves. I have been told that once a truss has set, you should remove all the leaves below the truss to allow the plant to put more energy into growing bigger fruits. Is this true, necessary or desirable??

[Nicos]

Your call really!!

We thin out some of the lower leaves to allow more air flow and light to get to the fruit.

Some energy will be wasted growing new leaves ( hence nipping out the growing tips)- but my thoughts are that the established leaves are busy converting light energy into food for the plant and should be mostly left on until the last couple of weeks when you need the last rays of summer ( ha!!)to finish off ripening the fruit.

I wonder what other peeps do???

[TinyT]

I tried nipping out most of the lower leaves on all of my tomato plants (except the bushy types) for the first time, to try to give each plant enough growing space and see if removing the lower leaves do convert the plants energy into other areas of the plant. The plants appear to like it so far. Tiny fruits are starting to appear, along with a few more trusses. I think the plants look a little neater with a bit of a trim too and I can spot any insect eggs under leaves/poorly plants a little quicker with there being less leaves, but I guess everyone has different ways of raising tomatoes

[Kristen]

I leave all the leaves on mine until the leaves are "knackered", at which point I remove them. Leaves make the energy for the plant, so I want to lave plenty on mine.

But there are other schools of though, and their advocates say that they work well.

So I reckon that either route is probably fine - but if you are new to it I recommend you do half-and-half and see if you prefer, or get better results, with one compared to the other.

[kernowyon]

Some energy will be wasted growing new leaves ( hence nipping out the growing tips)- but my thoughts are that the established leaves are busy converting light energy into food for the plant and should be mostly left on until the last couple of weeks when you need the last rays of summer ( ha!!)to finish off ripening the fruit.

I agree with you Nicos, I leave them on till the last moment

[Rachiered]

It's only my second year growing toms, and I was very unsuccessful last year. This year they seemed to be doing fairly well. Last week I read about removing all of the "useless" leaves, just leaving the top ones for photosynthesis. I tried it on about half of my plants, and after two or three days I was amazed how many new tomatoes were forming and flowers were opening. I was so chuffed that I did it to the rest last night. It was very scary, and a bit drastic, but they seem to love it!
I was out for an experiment, but I agree with the others when they say to leave them on until the last few weeks.

[Alice]

It's up to yourself Alastair. I leave the leaves on mine until late in the season. When the leaves look as if they are crowding the plant, shutting out daylight from the ripening toms, or going manky, I cut them off. Just do what looks sensible to you.

[Flummery]

Once we have got this far on in the year and toms are setting (and even ripening here and there) I remove the lower leaves. I grow my plants in the greenhouse border soil so it can get seriously weedy down there if I can't get at the soil towards the back. If I remove a few leaves from the bottom I can tidy up a bit. I'm sure this helps with air flow too. There are still lots of leaves on the plant for photosynthesis purposes. I don't really think the 'bald' look can do the plants much good, though it might work at the fag end of the season to ripen up the last trusses.

[SarzWix]

I've just started taking off a few of the lower leaves on my plants, but nearly all of them have 5 trusses set already. I'm only taking off just enough to be able to water without splashing the leaves to avoid any mould/rot setting in, my feeling being that if the plants don't need the leaves they will die back on their own. It's still early enough in the season not to be panicking about unripe fruit just yet.

[Moyra]

Having worked commercially growing tomatoes many years ago can I recommend that you remove only the bottom couple of leaves completely which seem to go a bit yellow anyway and thereafter as the tomatos set on the truss take half a leaf off up to the next truss until it is set and keep going with halfing the leaves to get more circulation and light to the trusses as you go. Then when your cordon is as high as you want it to go or has sufficient trusses, I usually go to six or thereabouts, then take out the top growing spear. Only remove the remainder of the leaves once the fruit is of sufficient size on each truss and needs light to ripen again remove the leaves as you progress up the trusses as the tomatoes mature. I hope I have explained that simply enough.:

[Flummery]

Brilliantly Moyra. It's useful to know how it's done in the commercial world.

[Vixen218]

sorry but i know this will sound really dumb, but what are "trusses", and what do you mean when you say "nipping out the growing tips"

just wondering as i have toms growing in the garden in pots and have not been in a greenhouse just planted straight into the pot outside and are about 12" high and are flowering but have very nice chunky stems (they are moneymakers by the way)

[Kristen]

trusses - the little side branches that the flowers (and later the fruit) are on

"nipping out the growing tips" = stopping the plant growing any more by taking the very end piece, which becomes the next leaves.

Might also be referring to removing the side shoots - in a greenhouse Tomatoes are usually grown as a Cordon - just a single stem, and any "side branches" that it forms are removed