An old French method of dwarfing tomatoes

[Pippin]

I will keep all suckers that grow from the main lead in my plant because it is a cherry and can likely grow and ripe a lot of fruits. And I want a plant that hopefully looks like a small bush or shrub. But this is not to claim I am doing it the right way.

I like the interpretation of keeping two top suckers only, especially if the dwarfing was done for a plant with larger fruits. In this way, the plant would become T-shaped and it would make sense to support it with horizontal strings. Similar way that they grow grapewines in France?

[Toomanymatoes]

I think it is simply just terminating every branch at the flower cluster. Grow as many branches as you want. The first passage suggested three successive times, which I think is 7 flower clusters assuming you get a new branch at each axil.

I found the description in several different books. Some differ somewhat. I think all these old magazines/books on gardening and farming are quite fascinating to read.

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[Toomanymatoes]

I will keep all suckers that grow from the main lead in my plant because it is a cherry and can likely grow and ripe a lot of fruits. And I want a plant that hopefully looks like a small bush or shrub. But this is not to claim I am doing it the right way.

I like the interpretation of keeping two top suckers only, especially if the dwarfing was done for a plant with larger fruits. In this way, the plant would become T-shaped and it would make sense to support it with horizontal strings. Similar way that they grow grapewines in France?

I did read it was similar to how grapes were pruned.

[Shule]

Well, I've discovered that one of my volunteers is probably Cosmic Eclipse, which last year, grew a large plant that smothered other plants and hid most of it's fruit carefully, such that I didn't really get to harvest much. So, I decided to try the French style of pruning on it (at least initially). Apparently, it was already preparing to monopolize the garden, as it had lots of vigorous suckers. So, I pruned all the suckers off and pruned to the top of the flower cluster. Hopefully it works well.

Most of my plants seem to already have laterals/suckers before they have flowers. So, with the one I pruned, I took them all off in order for the sap go to directly into the flowers from the beginning (I figured leaving two laterals on below might interfere with that, but if they grow afterward, that's another matter).

[Mark_Thompson]

@Shule
I’m confused, isn’t the idea to top it above the first flowers then let the two suckers below grow? If you pinched all suckers and topped it, then what’s left?

[Shule]

@Shule
I’m confused, isn’t the idea to top it above the first flowers then let the two suckers below grow? If you pinched all suckers and topped it, then what’s left?

It'll grow new ones. I wanted to use the actual process described instead of having branches that were already present before I started. Yeah, leaving the old ones on might have been better, but it wouldn't have taught us as much about the process described, since the sap wouldn't initially just be going into the flower cluster (and the branches didn't have obvious flower buds).

[Shule]

So, what has happened so far is this (with the Cosmic Eclipse^ volunteer)--the fruit set not too long after the pruning (which was what I was hoping for, as it seemed to take it's time unpruned last year). The flowers were a very bright yellow. It then it had serious leaf curl issues (curled all the time since then, even still). Then, it grew a new branch out of the end of the flower truss!^^ Those leaves aren't curly. At this point, I'm abandoning the French pruning experiment in order to experiment with letting that grow, to see what happens, especially as the truss has such a thick stem that might be getting thicker. My hypothesis is that the flower truss stem will continue to thicken, and maybe the fruits growing on it will get extra nourishment because of the thickness.

No new branches have grown where the old ones were pruned off, yet, though. So, it's putting all its strength into the branch at the end of the flower truss. It needs the new leaves fast to replace those curled ones (so, that's another reason to not prune it off and wait).

^The fruit looks like Cosmic Eclipse, anthocyanin skin and all, so I'm convinced that's what it is.

^^I have another plant doing this, too (Snacker_C1). I'm also letting the branch and new flower trusses grow.

[Shule]

I like the idea of topping branches by the flower truss, but I'm not sure if I want the plants to have to grow so wide (without central branches to support it) so I have to support the width, as described in the OP (since I don't have a solid method down for doing that, yet). So, I'm thinking about just topping off the stems by flower stalks (on some plants that already have lots of branches, since most of mine do), without removing any suckers, to simulate a determinate plant in an indeterminate (and to make the fruit more accessible). This is for some other plants besides Cosmic Eclipse (not for it).

[JRinPA]

I too am experimenting a bit with pruning above the flowers, but not doing this full on with any single plant.

[Pippin]

This is how my french dwarfed tomato is doing. In my dwarfing variant, I was just topping above flowers but keeping all suckers. I have some determinates in containers too and they are a bit larger plants than this indeterminate.

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It is still relatively compact and the first tomatoes are ripening, however, it has a tendency of continuing the growth from the bud below topped flowers. Some lower buds starts growing later but the stronges growth is on the just below one. This means that it is slowly getting wider.

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[Shule]

Here's what my Cosmic Eclipse looks like:

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[Pippin]

My French dwarfed tomato test last summer was eventually successful. It is a neat way of growing indeterminate tomatoes in containers as patio plants. I was simply topping all side shoots after the first flower. Did not remove any lower side shoots or counted them, simply snipped any growing tip above the flower away. At first it looked that the plant would spread too much and become too big but when there was more tomatoes growing in the plant, it stopped producing new growth and focused growing the fruits. Of course, it did not produce as much tomatoes as a fully grown plant but still similar amount to what could be expected from a patio plant.

I was using my dwarfed plant in my breeding project. It was handy for me to do the crossing inside the house, and to control the pollination temperature (which is difficult during hot weather). And I saved one spot from the green house for something else.

I can highly recommend trying it at least for any indeterminate cherry. Not sure if it would work as well for beefstakes or similar large tomato varieties.

[Toomanymatoes]

My French dwarfed tomato test last summer was eventually successful. It is a neat way of growing indeterminate tomatoes in containers as patio plants. I was simply topping all side shoots after the first flower. Did not remove any lower side shoots or counted them, simply snipped any growing tip above the flower away. At first it looked that the plant would spread too much and become too big but when there was more tomatoes growing in the plant, it stopped producing new growth and focused growing the fruits. Of course, it did not produce as much tomatoes as a fully grown plant but still similar amount to what could be expected from a patio plant.

I was using my dwarfed plant in my breeding project. It was handy for me to do the crossing inside the house, and to control the pollination temperature (which is difficult during hot weather). And I saved one spot from the green house for something else.

I can highly recommend trying it at least for any indeterminate cherry. Not sure if it would work as well for beefstakes or similar large tomato varieties.

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing your experience. I really want to try this out.