Pruning

We need to prune every week.

The ideal balance is 18 leaves per leader.

That way, we are able to maintain growth throughout the season and help fruit ripen faster. Pruning puts some stress on the plant. This helps it focus its energy on making fruit instead of growing leaves.

If you don’t prune, your plant will prioritize leaves over fruit.

It will decrease the total number of tomatoes it produces during the season. 
Plus, the only fruit it will produce will be lost in the leaves, getting no light.
That means very little fruit, taking up to four more weeks to ripen. An unpruned bed has poor airflow around the plants. This can lead to a higher risk of disease.

The technique

Once a week, select three leaders and count the leaves from top to bottom. Calculate an average leaves/leader.

Touch the leaves with your hands as you count. It's tough to count accurately by just looking. 

There are too many leaves and stems. The error margin is high. 

So touch the leaves. 

Let's say you’ve counted 21 leaves, on average. You need to take out 3 leaves per leader for the whole bed.

Start at the beginning of the row and prune the lowest 3 leaves of every leader. And so on for every leader. (figure 1)

⚠️ WARNING: make sure to break the leaf tight to the stem. Don’t leave a stub, as it becomes an entry point for grey mold. (figure 2)

If the growth is optimal, expect to prune 3 leaves per week.

Good practices

• Prune in the morning so the wounds dry before nighttime
• If you can, prune on sunny days
  
• Take the pruned leaves out of the tunnel as soon as you’re done. This reduces the chances of disease spread

When pruning leaves, also remove empty clusters you harvested in the previous week.