In article .com,
jimnginger wrote:

On Jun 12, 12:24?pm, The Cook wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:42:24 GMT, George wrote:
I vaguely recall once reading that cutting the lower (lowest?)
side-shoots of your tomatoes cause something good to happen. True? If
true, is there a 'window of opportunity' for doing it? Ours are about
1' high right now.

Thanks,
George

I have never taken out the shoots on any of my tomato plants. More
shoots, more tomatoes. I also do not take the top off of my
indeterminant tomatoes.
--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)

There are two schools of thoughts on tomatoes. One that prunes and one
that does not. I do not. Organic Gardening Magazine once did an
article on this subject and compared yield of a tomato plant both
pruned and unpruned. The yield was the SAME. So in the end, I think it
is an issue of esthetics and time you have available. They may look
better pruned, but the season yield will aparently be the same. Enough
said. Regards - Jim

As Susan said there are two types of tomatoes: determinant and
indeterminate. Determinant grow like a bush and then stop.
Indeterminate grow like a vine and don't stop. Just off hand, I can't
think of one heirloom tomato that is a determinant. Maybe somebody will
think of one. In the past, I've just let the tomato rip and enjoyed
watching it climb until it finally toppled over its' support. My
supports are only about 4' high but the tomato would go to over 6'. I
suppose you could build a taller cage. Tomato toppers will tell you to
top when the tomato gets to the top of its' cage. I've never been
disappointed in my tomatoes productivity.

Thing is, when the tomato flops over, a lot of the plant that had been
exposed to sunlight is now shaded by the flopped over top growth. I
could cut that growth off but I would be wasting the energy that went
into growing it. You see where I'm going with this? This year I'm
topping, just to see what difference it makes. Hopefully, my tomatoes
won't be so unkempt and more energy will go into making tomatoes or at
least, in to making them earlier.

You will see that between the growing flowering tip and a side leaf a
sprout (actually a sucker: sucks the energy out of the plant is the
hypothesis). I don't believe these make flowers. Need to check that but
it is vegetation. The reasoning is that with tomatoes, you don't want
vegetation, you want fruit. One way or the other you'll have 'maters but
at some point you may want to fine tune it. A whole lot of people say
pruning and snipping is the way to do it.

I'll let you know how it works out for me.

- Billy
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)