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Prune Off Tomato Flowers?
One question I have been getting a lot of lately: Should I prune off (snip off, pinch out) the first tomato flowers that appear, in order to get more tomatoes later?
Those early tomato flowers, especially if the weather doesn’t cooperate, will fall all by themselves, thank you. Your assistance is not needed.
In today’s newsletter podcast (above), Sacramento County Master Gardener and vegetable expert Gail Pothour explains the myths behind pruning off tomato flowers.
Flower drop and tomato fruit set failure can happen in May and June for a number of reasons, including night temperatures below 55; daytime temperatures above 90; excess nitrogen fertilizer, too much shade, too much smog, plants set out too early in spring, or planting the wrong variety for your area (a Beefsteak tomato attempting to grow in cool, damp San Francisco is not a match made in heaven).
However, by removing those flowers once they are in a situation where they can be pollinated successfully, what is accomplished by removing those flowers? FEWER TOMATOES! And, unless you are trying to stop production, it would be counterproductive to your ultimate goal: shoving that beautiful red orb into the face of your non-gardening neighbor on the Fourth of July, singing, “Nyah, nyah, nyah!”
Wow, where did this tomato flower pruning fallacy begin? One questioner offered a clue when he prefaced that question with, “Last night, the local TV Weatherman said…”
Bad move, taking gardening advice from a person who guesses for a living.
Still, that piece of poor advice must have some historic legs to it. And sure enough, there are many people at social media garden pages who are passing on this wrong-headed notion. And as far as I can tell, it’s the result of one gardener reading a piece of research on tomato pruning, and mangling the retelling of that research.
For example, wholesale tomato plant grower Bonnie Plants offers this online piece of advice at their website page, “How to Prune Tomatoes for a Big Harvest.”
As the growing season draws to a close, tomato plants are often still loaded with fruit. To speed ripening late in the season, remove the growing tip of each main stem about four weeks before the first expected fall frost. Called "topping," this type of pruning causes the plant to stop flowering and setting new fruit, and instead directs all sugars to the remaining fruit. This way, the fruit will ripen faster, plus it becomes more likely that the green tomatoes you pick before frost will actually ripen when you bring them indoors. It may be hard to bring yourself to do this, but it will be worth it if you wish for ripe tomatoes! Of course, if you prefer your tomatoes to remain green for use in frying and jelly, you can certainly skip this step.
Gardener A reads this, and then retells the story to Gardener B, omitting the fact that this advice applies to late season, indeterminate tomatoes only. Gardener B then tells Gardener C: “Pruning tomato flower buds is recommended by Bonnie Plants.” Gardener C then goes online and writes: “Remove flower buds on tomato plants to increase the number of tomatoes.”
Or something like that. And another digital gardening virus is born.
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When and how should you prune tomatoes?
Very little, only when necessary, to keep the plants within bounds. If you grow your tomatoes in cages (recommended), you would only need to remove those branches that
Published on 3 months, 1 week ago