Removing leaves on your tomatoes?

[Mrs Dobby]

Hi Gang,

I know this is probably waaaay too early to ask the question, as apart from a few seedlings I'm fairly sure no-one in the uk has Toms growing yet, but I followed a link from the adds on the 'vine yesterday, and found this http://www.joyfultomato.com/special_report.html

The guy on here talks of removing all the leaves from your tomato plants, except for 3?

I've heard of removing leaves if blight strikes, and to encourage ripening at the end of the season, but does he actually have a point? Is it something we should be doing? Or is he just out to make a fast buck?

Any ideas or advice anyone?

[madderbat]

I've always taken out the 'secondaries' ie the little ones that come up by the stem at the bottom of big leaves.
Maybe I've been doing it wrong and that's why Ive never been very good at tomatoes?

Just looked at the link and am a bit scpetical, it's a Canadian money making page!
I bet they are talking about growing Monsanto crops too!

[Nicos]

Interesting advert!
Never heard of doing that before, but maybe you have to do all the things it suggests in the book to make it work?
I know Monty Don strips of most of the leaves at the end of the growing season to help ripen the fruit.
Might be worth thinning out the leaves on a couple of plants to see what happens ( I can understand what he says about fungal infections).....

[Mrs Dobby]

Have to agree with you both, I'm not sure if its something that works, or whether its a scam, but I may try it out on a couple of plants, just to see whether it works or not! Who knows, if it does then perhaps we'll have more room in the greenhouse in subsequent years than we will have this year!

[Alison]

Sounds a bit dodgy to me. As with those above, I've stripped the leaves at the end of the season and removed the odd large one if it's shading too much of the crop but wouldn't think it was a good idea to reduce the leaves too much. I'm guessing he's more talking about bush type tomatoes (doesn't say but got that feeling) which you wouldn't pinch out so maybe some plants do get a bit congested but this seems a bit drastic to me. Also, these hard, tastless, smell-less tomatoes he's talking about don't sound anything like the ones I grow.

[SueA]

Sounds interesting Mrs. D., I like the way he says you have to do it a precise way or you could harm the plants & let infection in & he will tell you the right way if you buy the book! I take off the lower leaves when they start to yellow & a few of the larger ones if they are shading the fruit but am not sure about leaving only 3 on each plant. It does seem to have some logic to it in that the plant wastes a lot of energy growing leaves instead of swelling the fruits so maybe there is something to it.

[Birdie Wife]

Hmm, confess I'm a bit sceptical. Isn't it the photosynthesis which createst the sugars that packs the fruit with flavour? Photosynthesis can be done in any green part of the plant it's true, but I wouldn't be at all convinced that 3 leaves would be enough to provide sugars for a huge crop like he's talking about. That said, you don't want too many leaves which divert the plant's attention away from making fruit. I suppose though that 'stressing' the plant by stripping it's leaves might make it want to fruit extra because it thinks it's about to die, so would channel more energy into passing on it's DNA, ie. more fruit. Interesting! I can feel an experiement coming on!

[Snadger]

In my view this guys done it for a bet with his college mates to see how many gullible people he can con!!!

Main nutrient required for fruit or flowers is Potassium!

Main nutrient requirement for leaves is Nitrogen!

Two different processes are at work, plant growth and fruit formation!

Ne'er the twixt shall meet!

[sewer rat]

I remove all the leaves below the bottom truss of fruits but only after the fruits are well developed. Other than that I would only remove leaves towards the end of the season to let the fruit ripen that bit quicker. Other than that, I feel the best advice would be to leave well alone.

[Alice]

I agree with SueA and Rat. And I looked at the link and think this guy is just talking nonsense - starting with his description of how tomatoes are, and going on from there !

[nick the grief]

Well as they get older they usually start to wrinkle anyway so I always remove them as it allows the air to circulate around them better. But if they look good & healthy I leave them on.

As Tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family it would only be the top most leaves that were doing anything anyway the rest would be in the shade of whatever it was climbing up - so it sort of make sense but I think there is probably a good pinch of bunkum in there as well.

[Digger-07]

I always take the secondaries out and then remove large leaves below the lowest set truss once the toms. start to ripen. By this time they are not usually doing a lot for the plant anyway. It also helps to prevent moth attack and makes finding any grubs easier.