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Pruning to Single Stem

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Posted by Jenny168 Zone 10 (My Page) on
Sun, May 5, 13 at 0:56

Hi Everyone,
I live in Zone 10 a few blocks from the ocean. It stays pretty cool here and I have found that growing cherry varieties work best for me. Last year I started growing in Earthboxes and had my best harvest ever.

I have two questions, has anyone grown any of the Grafted Mighty Mato's and if so, what are your thoughts.

Also, I am thinking of pruning to one, two or three stems since my fruit takes forever to ripen because of the cool weather. What are your thoughts?

Here is what I am growing this year by Mighty Mato:

Grafted Bubble Bee Purple
Grafted Carmello
Grafted Sun Sugar
Grafted Pacino
Grafted Blush
Grafted Julie
Grafted Berkeley Tie Dye (I wanted to try it even though it's not a cherry since everyone seems to rave about it. Will do single stem for sure)

From Laurel's Heirloom Tomato: (non-grafted)

Black Cherry
Sungold
Isis Candy
Gardener's Delight
Snow White
Sweet Baby Girl

Any thoughts any has on pruning to one, two or three stems would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Jenny

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RE: Pruning to Single Stem

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So you are assuming that pruning the plants to just a couple of stems will speed up the ripening? I don't know that that has ever been proven to be true but I'd be curious to hear about your results.

How many of those large indeterminates are you putting in each Earthbox? I ask because i use them too and have found over the years that while they will handle 1 indeterminate plant or 2 determinate varieties, they don't cope well with 2 indeterminate varieties. But then your weather is very different from my heat.

I do know that it will reduce your production substantially but if that is no concern for you and if you won't have any difficulty supporting the much taller vines, sure give it a try.

I am also curious though as to why, since you are growing in Earthboxes, you are using grafted stock? They were developed to resist soil borne diseases and in Earthboxes that is no concern. Plus they are so much more expensive.

Enjoy your tomatoes - and your weather. :)

Dave

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RE: Pruning to Single Stem

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I live just outside Portland, Oregon, and while I'm not so very close to the ocean, I do get a lot of marine influence coming up the Columbia. Seldom do we have more than a handful of night time temps above 50 to string together here and there over the summer.
I have two side by side plots. One, I prune plants to two leaders, the other are un-pruned in CRW cages I plant the same varieties in each plot. Purely anecdotal, but the Plants trained to two leaders produce, on average, slightly larger fruit 7-10 days earlier, Than the caged, but production is significantly hindered (it does mean I can get ripe fruits from a few long season varieties that often remain green in the CRW by season end).
Similarly, with grafted plants, I'm not after disease tolerance, but the added vigor. Again, anecdotally, I noticed significantly higher yields with ripe fruits 7-10 earlier on the few grafted varieties I had last year (again I had the same varieties un-grafted growing in close proximity), and this year I did my own grafting onto colossus rootstock with a modicum of success. If you do it yourself and only get 50% success rate (my first year and I’m over 60%) It ends up costing you about and extra dollar per plant. In difficult conditions like my maritime climate, I’m handsomely rewarded with many more tomatoes that more than make up for the extra cost. At least that’s how it worked out last year. That’s just my experience so far…

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