Hi everyone! I’m a tomato-growing novice. I purchased a brandywine start from a local nursery a few weeks ago, and while taking a look at it today, noticed that I couldn’t identify a main stem. It sort of seems like it split into two or three? Am I correct in seeing that?
by GlutenPain
4 Comments
I could tell it was a Brandywine before I even read your description! All 6 of my Brandywines look like they have “merged” stems just like yours. I’m afraid I don’t have any advice as to which one is the main stem or how to prune it, but last year I just kind of let them do their thing and got plenty of tomatoes sooooo…. Good luck, your plant looks nice and healthy!
Tomatoes don’t really have a main stem per se like a pepper and some other plants. Each leader will grow and produce fruit. Similarly, if you want to train them to a single leader, you can trim either of them.
The one that’s growing highest is kind of by definition the main leader. The others are branches. But it doesn’t matter, you could pinch out the main leader and one of the branches would take over as the leader.
A lot of people like to train their tomatoes to 1 l with only short branches coming off of it by keeping the branches pinched back. I tend to go with 3 leaders trained up three tall strong posts.
That plant looks a little leggy, with a long distance between nodes where the leaves and branches are coming out. Is it getting enough light?
Yes they always spit 2 main leaders if you choose to keep it. Keep it with the suckers