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Old April 12, 2010   #9
dice
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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Note: a study some years ago at UCDavis found that
*moderate* pruning produced earlier fruitset on average.
(My guess: the plant reacted to it as if light levels were
dropping and started setting fruit in anticipation of fall.)

This was probably in an environment with near ideal
temperatures for fruit set, so the timing of first fruit set
was more dependent on the plant's genetics and less on
the weather.

In some parts of Europe, pruning tomato plants is standard
operating procudure:

http://www.tomodori.com/3culture/taill_sur_2-tiges.htm

In this sort of tomato culture, growers likely have a target number
of fruit per plant that they consider ideal for producing the
best marketable fruit, so the extra branches that they prune
off would not be useful anyway. In the illustrations, they are
not pruning leaves, just extra side-shoots that come up in the
crotches between the main stems and the leaves. They also
top the main stems that remain once the plant gets to what
they consider mature size to accelerate ripening of the
remaining fruit on the plant.

This is nothing like "pruning off all but a few leaves". The
plant still retains enough foliage to protect the fruit from
sunscald. There is a method called "Missouri pruning"
where the side branches are allowed to produce a set of
leaves before the tips on those side shoots are pruned (more
leaf area for photosynthesis and sun protection without
producing more fruit clusters).
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Last edited by dice; April 14, 2010 at 01:49 PM. Reason: clarity
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