Tomatoes - four or five trusses?

[Monika]

Our tomatoes in the greenhouse have set beautifully. They are now forming a fifth truss - is it worth keeping those or should I take the top off and let the plants concentrate on filling the four trusses?

[Elmigo]

It's a question I asked myself too a while ago. Some people also remove the first trusses to focus on root growth before fruiting. I personally just keep all the trusses. I'm curious about others.

[robo]

I let mine grow to around nine trusses ,but I always grow mine late I usually have tomatoes into mid November ,at the moment some of mine have the first truss flowering some are not that far on

[Geoff]

I let them get on with it until they run out of space in a tangled mess at the top of the greenhouse.

[alan refail]

I've always use the "let 'em go wild at the end of summer" method. At the moment I have enough to do removing as many sideshoots as possible. Later on, if any have escaped me, I tie them up to the crop bars and let them get on with it. I sure I always get more tomatoes that way, rather than taking out the growing point.

[Tony Hague]

Don't cut any off ! Why waste fruit. Most if us are constrained by height of the greenhouse to about 4 trusses, cutting the bottom one off makes that 3 trusses, and later to start picking.

Commercial greenhouses are much taller, with a longer growing season through artificial heat and light. Even the extra height of their glasshouses isn't the limit for tomatoes, so they are grown up a string hung from the roof. When the plant hits the roof, the string is untied and the whole plant lowered and moved to one side, so the bottom of the stem lies along the ground where it can root down. This can be repeated many times. I wonder how many trusses per plant they get using this system.

[tigerburnie]

My tommies are some weeks behind I think, first ones just setting now, I tend to pinch out the tops when they hit the roof, which will be around 7 feet this year(if they get that tall).

[Primrose]

I'm greedy for as many fruit as I can get, even outdoors where at the end of the season I'm always left with some green ones letting them grow as much as they can until the frost threatens so with the protection of a greenhouse Monika I'd take advantage of the extra protection and let them grow as high as possible. I'd just add a little extra nutrition towards the end of the growing season to encourage them to keep going.
It,s always a big "Boo" In our household when we have to go back to buying commercial tomatoes.ao keep your own going as long as you can.

[Elmigo]

My father kept his tomato plant in a pot when it got colder. All the leaves fell off and it seemed to have died. He placed the pot in his garage to get through the winter. Very early this year this tomato plant started to make leaves again. He now got a couple of tomatoes on it, though not as much as last year.

Tomatoes come from warmer climates where they grow all year around, but in our cooler climates (UK, Netherlands) tomatoes are often kept as annual plant. At the end of crop season we get less sunlight hours and light intensity drops. The same goes for the beginning of crop season. Tomatoes need a good lot of direct sunlight to ripen properly so the first and especially the last fruits may not be as great as the fruits that are harvested mid-summer. For this reason it may as well be more convenient to remove the first trusses and limit to about 6 or something, depending on the tomato variety and mostly on the weather gods. Focussing on growth first makes the plant stronger and able to bear more or larger fruits.

For me last year, the last trusses on my cherry tomato plants did not even ripen anymore due to lack of sunlight. I took it to the compost heap soon after.