How to Prune Tomato Plants – Did you know that tomato plants need to be pruned regularly to maintain their productivity levels.
The reason is, plants with too many leaves actually have poor growth. This happens because most of the nutrients obtained from these plants are not maximally allocated to the fruit.
Tomato plants that are too dense because they have lots of leaves and branches generally produce small fruit. The reason is none other, namely the results of photosynthesis are also divided to support leaf growth.
As a result, fruit development is not optimal. In addition, pruning on tomato plants is also useful for regulating humidity and preventing pests and diseases.
There are three types of pruning techniques on tomato plants that you can try.
Table of Contents
Pruning young shoots
Tomato trees that have too many shoots can interfere with plant growth itself. You need to adjust the number of shoots for high productivity and maximum fruit growth.
Especially the shoots that grow between the stems need to be trimmed so that only the main stem and leaves are left. Pruning can be done manually using sterile hands by squeezing the shoots.
Pruning of stems
Stem pruning is done when there are two leaves growing above the fifth fruit bunch. The goal is none other than to accelerate the ripening of tomatoes.
The exception is if there are shoots that grow strongly on the stems around this fifth fruit bunch, the stems don’t need to be pruned.
Tomato plants will have good productivity when they have 2-3 branch shoots on each stem. Pruning is done using a sharp knife.
Pruning flowers and fruit
Pruning flowers and tomatoes also needs to be done to maximize their growth. Ideally, each tomato plant should only produce 6-8 fruits per period.
By reducing the quantity of fruit, the quality of the fruit can be significantly improved. The fruit that is left untreated will grow optimally until it reaches premium quality.
However, if the expected fruit quality standards are not too high, for example for the local market, it is not necessary to prune the flowers / fruit.