Single Stem Tomatoes

[b54red]

It does look like several varieties will make the list. I'm sure I will have enough to use this method on at least one bed and maybe modify it a bit for another bed with the varieties that are on the bubble. It is amazing how many fruit set on those single stem plants. I only have one multiple stem plant that has put out those kinds of numbers so far and that is Dana's Dusky Rose.

[ddsack]

Red, thanks so much for posting your pruning results. So interesting. Did you find any difference in the size of the remaining leaves in the pruned plants as opposed to the unpruned ones? Like the plant tries to grow larger leaves to make up for lack of number?

[venturabananas]

Originally Posted by tedln

Red, I seem to remember Carolyn Male making a statement that a certain number of leaves are required on a plant to provide nutrients from photosynthesis for each developing tomato (paraphrased). I don't remember all of the details, but it seems possible that limiting the stems may limit the required number of leaves. It could also be possible that different varieties with different leaf types, sizes, and shapes could influence each varieties ability to perform well as single stem or multi stem plants. If that is true, I wonder how the "stick" tomato plant is able to fully develop fruit with all of its leaves bunched tightly against the main stem. Ted

I found that this article helped me understand why pruning could be helpful for production, despite removing leaf area for photosynthesis. Some of it has to do with "self-shading". Leaves growing in the shade of other leaves can't do much photosynthesis. Different leaf shapes would affect they extent of self-shading.

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/...-tomatoes.aspx

I wonder if the increased fruit set some have noted in pruned plants could be caused by something as simple as increased air flow, which wiggles the flowers in the breeze and increases pollination.

[b54red]

dd, I haven't seen any difference in the size of the leaves.

venturabananas, I don't know what causes the heavier fruit set, maybe because not so much energy in diverted to new growth tips. I have no choice but to prune my plants for air circulation. With our humidity and heat if I don't, I end up with disastrous foliage diseases.

I am finding one thing that is really disappointing with the single stem pruned plants and that is they seem to die completely more quickly from fusarium than do the multiple stem ones. When I think about it, it makes sense, there is really only one growth tip and stem to infect and once it does that the plant has no ability to continue growing. I now have two plants from my multiple stem plants that have had all but one or two stems cut off near the base because the fusarium killed them but the others continue to grow and even set fruit; at least for a while. For me this means that any variety that is very susceptible to fusarium is just not a candidate for using the single stem pruning in my garden.
Of course there is the counterbalance to this because I have nearly 3 times as many tomatoes in the same space I can afford to lose at least twice as many. I guess I will just have to give it a little more time and see how it works out.

I'm going to post some pictures and hope it works. I've been having problems with the text editor in this forum jamming everything into one paragraph without any paragraph breaks and simply don't know how it will handle photos.

B54red (Bill) mentioned in a post on this thread that his Tarasenko 6 plants have been ravaged by disease. Mine have also, but with septoria leaf spot instead of fusaruim wilt. The advantage with septoria is it doesn't usually kill the plant and the tomatoes continue developing and the plant continues growing up and blooming. You can also see my dog Charlie behind the Tarasenko plant wondering what happened to that naked tomato plant. He is also waiting for his morning cucumber. He gets one in the morning and one in the evening.



This photo is of my Barlow Jap plant. It has also been damaged by disease but continues to bloom and set fruit. The fruit at the bottom of the plant are huge and in the center of the photo is a fused tomato that must weigh over two pounds at this point.



The following photos are of some of the different varieties growing with no explanation necessary. With the exception of the cherry and small plum varieties, all of the tomatoes photographed are really large. For some reason, the photos can't illustrate their size.

Prue (This tomato is really interesting. From the first day I planted it out, it looked like it only wanted to lay down and die. But instead of dieing, it just keeps on growing while pumping out blossoms and fruit. I hope it tastes as good as people claim)


Pink Berkely Tie Dye (This is one of the most beautiful tomatoes I've ever grown. If it tastes half as good as it looks, I'm in for a treat)


Black Krim (probably the tallest plant in my garden approaching ten feet. I was really disappointed last year with the soft texture of this tomato and hope it improves this year. The taste is outstanding)


My dwarf varieties (also hit pretty hard by disease, but still pumping out large fruit and new growth)


Sungold


Jaune Flamme


I guess I should stop here or this post will be way to big. I will end with a couple of photos of other veggies I am growing.





Next time, I will try to post some photos of my Indian Stripe, Wes, Stump Of The World, and a few others. My problem is I haven't found a way to get my camera into the heavy foliage where the tomatoes tend to hang out (pun)

Ted

[b54red]

Ted, some of those look fantastic. Septoria is much easier to deal with than fusarium; at least you get tomatoes even if the plant looks bad.

Your dwarf tomatoes look like they may have Gray Mold. Did that stuff develop on them right after a lot of rain?

I love BTDP because it handles most problems at least as good as the better hybrids and it is really beautiful. I wish it did taste as good as it looks. If it did it might be the only tomato I grew. It is good but not the very best to me.

Try holding way back on the watering on the Black Krim just as they start turning and don't leave them on the plant too long. If they stay out in the heat and sun just a bit too long or get too much water they will be very mushy. I like to eat them when they appear a little less ripe than some of the blacks. It is a trial and error method because if you eat them too soon you miss out on too much flavor. They are really tricky and heavy rain can ruin all your work with them.

This is my Linnie's Oxheart yesterday and today I will have to pull it as it is totally wilted now.
Linnies Oxheart 2 stems with fusarium May 19.jpg

Bill,

Yes, the dwarfs are the only plants in my garden to display gray mold. They first had septoria and then gray mold. The gray mold like septoria doesn't kill the plant, but makes it look pretty bad. I'm messing around with some techniques to prevent the onset of gray mold on the dwarfs, but I believe the cause is the fact that the rugose foliage has all the cracks and crevasses which retain the spores until conditions are optimum for an outbreak. My dwarfs last year, lived through the disease outbreaks and put on new growth mid summer and produced well into the fall without any sign of disease. It's all just part of the challenge called gardening.

I believe the dwarfs would or could be disease free in some other climates. We have a confluence of moderate temperatures and high humidity every spring which results in the perfect conditions for a variety of fungal diseases. When the high temps of summer and lower humidity arrive, my fungal problems disappear.

The only tomato I've grown which may be more attractive than the PBTD is Arbuznyi and it has taste to match its appearance. I have some Arbuznyi growing to replace a few of the plants that die in the summer heat.

I am really, really impressed with the Barlow Jap tomatoes and I suppose equally impressed with my Hoy tomatoes. I now only need to taste both to determine if they are keepers. I wasn't able to photograph the Hoy tomatoes. They were one of the varieties hanging around deep in the foliage, but they are something to behold. I will take some photos when I harvest the first one.

Ted

[b54red]

I was under the totally wrong impression that Gray Mold would not kill a plant until last year. I lost a good number of plants to it. If it stays on them long enough it can also start ruining the fruit. Gray Mold seems to like the dark tomatoes best and the ones with very dense foliage seem to get it first before it spreads and it will spread fast in humid conditions.

Bill,
I did lose one dwarf plant to gray mold last year. I may lose more this year, but I don't really mind because they will have already produced and I will appreciate the opportunity to replace them with a different variety for my fall garden. My PBTD and Carbon are both small plants and should do well in the same containers as the Dwarfs. Carbon also offers the advantage of being a fairly early variety and hopefully will produce well before the first frost of fall.

I really appreciate your efforts with the single stem versus multi stem question. Your results to date have pretty well convinced me the rewards of single stem growing don't exceed the effort invested. I think it would be difficult to categorize the varieties according to how well they respond to heavy pruning.

I'm not sure everyone knows what gray mold looks like on a tomato plant so I cropped and enlarged a portion of the "Dwarfs" photo to illustrate how it looks.




Ted

[b54red]

Ted your plants were much further along when they got Gray Mold than mine were. I still don't have but one or two tomatoes in the whole garden showing any color at all and most of the ones that got hit by the mold only had small fruit on them. It hit about the same time last year but before I could start picking tomatoes off the plants that had it there were almost no leaves and the tomatoes themselves were getting it. The rest got sun scald really bad.

My BTDB is not the largest of my single stem plants but it is larger than the average plant. Carbon has always been a fairly small plant for me. One that did good for me last year in a container was Grubs Mystery Green which is a compact plant and the best tasting GWR that I have tasted so far.

[Rockporter]

Well I'll be danged, I wondered what was destroying my tomato plants and now I know. The grey mold I saw in online photos looks nothing like your photo, and yours is just what my tomato leaves look like. I have been cutting them off and tossing them. Will this affect my potting mix for next season?

Originally Posted by Rockporter

Well I'll be danged, I wondered what was destroying my tomato plants and now I know. The grey mold I saw in online photos looks nothing like your photo, and yours is just what my tomato leaves look like. I have been cutting them off and tossing them. Will this affect my potting mix for next season?

While the spores of most fungi can be carried from season to season with contaminated soil and containers, I don't think it matters that much. I used all new sterile soil in my containers this year. I will probably sterilize my soil and containers with full strength bleach this next winter, but even that probably won't help. The truth is most fungi spores are simply in the environment and when the appropriate conditions occur, susceptible plants will probably be infected. I think the only chance a gardener has to prevent severe outbreaks of most plant diseases is to treat early and often. Next year, I won't even wait for it to appear before I start treating with 10% bleach, liquid copper, or daconil. The bleach has the ability to oxidize spores destroying them. Copper has the ability to neautralize the spores as it does in the pressure treated lumber. Daconil doesn't kill the spores, it only interferes with the spores ability to attach to a plant and become a fungus.

I don't know if you save seed, but if you do; you know the seed and tomato juice have fermented correctly when a green/white mold has totally covered the seed in a container. I always use a clean container for fermenting. I also don't purposely introduce mold spores into the container. They are simply in the environment and will do what they do when the opportunity presents itself.

Ted

[Rockporter]

Hmm, thanks for the info. The tomato plants I am growing were actually given to me this year and I am not so sure they weren't already having issues when I got them. They looked ok but it wasn't very long before problems began. The gal who gave them to me saved her seeds so I wonder about her seed saving processes. I also won't trust anyone when they tell me a plant is determinate because every one of the plants she gave me are Indeterminate. I have a very small growing area and found myself out there cutting the plants way back after reading this thread which will result in far less fruit available.

Anyway, to get back on topic here, thanks for the photo because it really helped me to see what I had been dealing with.

Your welcome Rockporter! Glad I could help. I think most gardeners are familiar with Septoria and Fusarium wilt. Gray Mold isn't as common and may be more difficult to identify. I don't know why the photos on the internet are usually not very good at depicting the different plant diseases. I think people who post the photos may over doctor the photos resulting in inaccurate colors and shades of colors. Ted

I'm curious if I broke some rule I'm not aware of by posting the garden photos the way I did. The photos of my dwarf plants and Tarasenko 6 as well as the non tomato veggie photos have been edited out of the post. Ted