wrote in news:9dhsu3FufjU3
@mid.individual.net:

Baz wrote:
Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing
all the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put
all it's energy into ripening the fruit,

Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his
researchers gave him the correct information.

If you remove all of the leaves, where does it get its energy from?

The roots and old helios (the sun)

But surely the conversion from sunlight to energy happens on the leaves,
which are now in the compost?

I am no expert but,
If you mean Photosynthesis, that process has ended because the fruits have
grown, the pollination has ceased because of defoliation and no more
trusses will appear. The little tiny tomatoes and flower should be taken
off, they will serve no purpose now, in fact they should have been nipped
weeks ago.

If my understanding is correct, the tomato ripens to a red colour so that
the birds are attracted to it for food. The birds eat the sugary bits of
the tomato and also some seed.
The bird then flies away to have a poo and places a seed in situ. The seed
grows into a plant when the temperature allows, usually in spring.

By defoliation what you are doing is fooling the tomato plant into thinking
it is autumn and "it's time I started to ripen my fruit into a nice red
colour" to attract the birds in order to disperse the s........and so on.

As I say I am no expert but the above is what I beleive happens.
Baz