Tomato String for Lean and Lower

[Gardeneer]

ON THE SUBJECT ; how much twine does a man need ?

I am considering "Stinging,, Lowering .." support system .
MY SITUATION : I will grow in rows of about 24 ft long ( 3 ? 4rows, maybe ), approx 45 plants. My plot is 20ft wide, 25 ft long. w/ walkways at the center and around it.

Now the questions :
1- How many main poles/ Ts I have to have at what spacing ?
2- How tall the poles need to be ?
3- Can the poles be interconnected with strong steel wire at tension ? Or have to use lumber ?
4- can I do 2 stems per plant ?
5- How much twine I would need ? ( 45 plants )
6- How many clips I would need ?

I want to have a neat arrangement.

Much thanks .

[BigVanVader]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

ON THE SUBJECT ; how much twine does a man need ?

I am considering "Stinging,, Lowering .." support system .
MY SITUATION : I will grow in rows of about 24 ft long ( 3 ? 4rows, maybe ), approx 45 plants. My plot is 20ft wide, 25 ft long. w/ walkways at the center and around it.

Now the questions :
1- How many main poles/ Ts I have to have at what spacing ?
2- How tall the poles need to be ?
3- Can the poles be interconnected with strong steel wire at tension ? Or have to use lumber ?
4- can I do 2 stems per plant ?
5- How much twine I would need ? ( 45 plants )
6- How many clips I would need ?

I want to have a neat arrangement.

Much thanks .

The thing about lean/lower is you have to prune a lot. It is very labor intensive and I want you to be prepared for that. I would recommend starting with 5 or 10 plants and see how you like it. It's not for everyone.

Now if you look at my and Bill's pics you can see it is all conduit and you can just connect the top poles with zip ties. Make the verticals a comfortable height for you to easily lift the whole plant. For me that is about 6.5 feet. I spaced mine 8ft apart and it worked fine. The only part that is bolted together is the supports. On mine I just added a upper and lower pole and the supports lay on top of those. Then I zip tie them to the supports.

Some recommendations:
Buy a box of twine you can wear. It saves a lot of trouble as you walk and string plants.

When you first lower your plants, lean them all the same way, and on the opposite side the other way. Like this: First row ////////// next row \\\\\\\\\\\

Dont start with two stems. It is a PITA and IMHO not worth the effort. I tried both ways this year, so maybe try one double and go from there.

I'd buy 2x the clips you think you will need. I found it to time consuming to remove them from bottom and re-use, and at the end of the season I just left them on the plants and tossed. I used around 10/15 per tomato plant

[BigVanVader]

Originally Posted by jtjmartin

I grow on a much smaller scale but found a number of old window screens for use on my coldframe. I adjust the shade by adding additional screens on top.

Good idea, made me think of buying a roll of window screen to use like shade cloth. Thanks!

[Cole_Robbie]

Some of my cattle gates mounted on t-posts ended up leaning towards the north, like a solar panel would be mounted, but I really liked the way the plants grew on them. The fruit tended to develop on the underside and hang down. They were easy to pick and did not get any sun scald. Vertical trellising is the standard, but I actually like it better at a little bit of an angle.

[schill93]

If you want to make your EMT structure neeter looking you can always spring for these fittings for use with 3/4" EMT.

https://creativeshelters.com/products/search?q=f3 $6.90

https://creativeshelters.com/products/search?q=f4 $8.90 ea.

You can go with larger size EMT or fence posts too.

There are also these:
http://coloradometalworx.com/greenho...eatured&page=1

Or these:
http://www.canopiesandtarps.com/cano...-fittings.html

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

The thing about lean/lower is you have to prune a lot. It is very labor intensive and I want you to be prepared for that. I would recommend starting with 5 or 10 plants and see how you like it. It's not for everyone.

Now if you look at my and Bill's pics you can see it is all conduit and you can just connect the top poles with zip ties. Make the verticals a comfortable height for you to easily lift the whole plant. For me that is about 6.5 feet. I spaced mine 8ft apart and it worked fine. The only part that is bolted together is the supports. On mine I just added a upper and lower pole and the supports lay on top of those. Then I zip tie them to the supports.

Some recommendations:
Buy a box of twine you can wear. It saves a lot of trouble as you walk and string plants.

When you first lower your plants, lean them all the same way, and on the opposite side the other way. Like this: First row ////////// next row \\\\\\\\\\\

Dont start with two stems. It is a PITA and IMHO not worth the effort. I tried both ways this year, so maybe try one double and go from there.

I'd buy 2x the clips you think you will need. I found it to time consuming to remove them from bottom and re-use, and at the end of the season I just left them on the plants and tossed. I used around 10/15 per tomato plant

Big VV, thanks for taking time and explaining so well.
I will take your advice and do just one row ( about 10 plants) in 2017. This way I can get a feel for it and sharpen my skills.

On Pruning, I have seen how it is done in commercial greenhouse.
grennhouse.jpg

But in the field it might be done differently.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Big VV, thanks for taking time and explaining so well.
I will take your advice and do just one row ( about 10 plants) in 2017. This way I can get a feel for it and sharpen my skills.

On Pruning, I have seen how it is done in commercial greenhouse.
Attachment 67766

But in the field it might be done differently.

In the field you will have to adapt the pruning to the type of foliage growth each plant produces. In other words some of the more open foliage plants will need to be given Missouri pruning in order to give sufficient leaf cover while more dense plants can have all suckers pruned at the joint.

It also helps to start leaning the plants right out of the gate in the direction you want to go with them. One thing that I didn't consider when I first started doing this is how long some of the varieties will get. With experience you will learn that some varieties just grow so much faster and will overlap slower growing plants. That is why I label the string that they are on so I can keep up with what is what. Another thing I do is plant the faster growing plants first toward the end in the direction they will grow so there is less of that overlapping to deal with.

The first few years I did grow mostly double stem plants but it does add a great deal of complexity to lowering and doesn't really give you any more production for the space you use because you need much more space between plants. There is however less chance of sun scald but for me it is not worth the extra trouble and danger of breaking the stems when lowering them. I usually plant my single stem plants about 18 to 24 inches apart and if I keep them pruned it usually works out great.

I actually find that going with the single stem method is by far the easiest method of supporting plants with the least amount of work involved as long as you do the basic pruning on time and regularly. It is far easier to keep up with just one stem and since there is only clipping to the string and no constant tying up of an ever growing number of stems it gets simpler as the season goes on. Near the end of the season I just let everything go and pick a few to eat while it becomes quite messy. I just cut the lines off and pull up the plant and roll the whole thing up and throw it away clips an all.

I generally put on one clip every foot or so and end up with most plants taking about 15 to 20 clips but I always have a few that grow like crazy and end up using more. For the past couple of years I have had a number of plants go over 25 feet in length but we do have a long season. This season I started removing the older plants before they even finished producing because of the difficulty of working with such long vines and because the size of the fruit was getting a bit small for the most part when they get over 20 feet long.

Bill

[BigVanVader]

Bill is the master so listen to him. I'd just say sunscald is the biggest issue for me so plan accordingly. Under plastic you don't have to worry about sunscald.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Bill is the master so listen to him. I'd just say sunscald is the biggest issue for me so plan accordingly. Under plastic you don't have to worry about sunscald.

I had less than a dozen fruits all summer with any signs of sunscald and I didn't use any shade cloth over my tomatoes. The ones that got scalded were where disease had removed the leaves so the fruit was just hanging out in the open with no shade. That can happen no matter how you grow your plants down here. The one thing that did have problems with sunscald was bell peppers and they had some shade cloth. This was a really tough year for bells.

Bill

[Gardeneer]

Is this great or what ?

Thanks Big V.V and Bill.

I am convinced . Single stem is way to go.
By Bill's explanation, you space the plants 18 to 24". So you plant approx twice as many and that should compensate for not having two stem. Plus, you guys are right. Each stem can/may grow at different rate so I can imagine that lowering them independently can be a problem.

I am decided now to grow one row and prune to single stem.

On the pruning lower leaf foliage, again you are right. Out on the field in hot climates down south sun scald is an issue. So it would be better to take easy on pruning the lower leaf branches.

[BigVanVader]

Bill is correct. Most of my issues came after grey mold tore through my garden and many lower leaves had to be removed. I found that covering the tomatoes with old cotton t shirt sleeves saved several that were left exposed.

Good luck with your upcoming season!

[Rajun Gardener]

BVV, it would've looked better if you used those little drink umbrellas to shade the tomatoes!!!!

[b54red]

Surprisingly some varieties even when left totally out in the open don't seem to scald while others are very sensitive to direct sunlight. The most sensitive variety I have found is Red Barn and when I have to remove too many leaves because of disease it is best to cover the tomatoes with something or they will really scald badly.

As to lower leaf pruning I take everything off below the lowest fruit cluster and when that is picked I do the same again. Not having a bunch of leaves to lay on the mulch really makes a difference in disease pressure. Sometimes it is necessary to lower plants down so that fruit are on the mulch because of the speed with which the plants can grow when there is only one growth tip. That is why I put down the heavy layer of cypress mulch so the fruits do not touch the soil. Even so when they are that close to the ground the pill bugs and slugs can mess up some of them.

I grew double stem plants for two years using this system and dreaded the lowering process every time because it was so difficult to do without damaging the plants. After trying one bed with the single stem plants and getting good results and finding that tending to twice as many plants was half as much work as dealing with the double stems I went all in on single stems two years ago. I doubt I will ever go back.

I have found that the hardest part of planting and supporting this way is setting everything up correctly. I learned that the structure has to be strong and resistant to wind because once the plants get large there is a lot of wind resistance and a lot of weight on the structure. The first year I did this method I had one of my structures fall over during a time of high wind when the plants were loaded with tomatoes. Boy that was a huge mess and taught me a valuable lesson. A little extra work is well worth the time when setting everything up. Besides most of that work is done during the cool weather of spring. It is a little harder when I am setting everything up for my late summer and fall plants. I even run a horizontal bar along the top of the mulch so that I can tie off my strings to it. It isn't a necessity but it makes a big difference when the winds of March and April are battering the newly planted seedlings. It also makes it easier to train the strings in one direction so that the plants are trained early to lean that way.

Bill

Bill

[Gardeneer]

Thanks bill. This is like a classroom for a nubie on stringing.
I have one more question.

I will do one row, about 20 - 25 ft long. If I firmly put one landscaping ( pressure treated) timber post at each end and anchor it well, then can I run steel wire between them ? I have this strong electric fence wire at hand. Or should I have one more post in the middle ? Or should I use lumber instead of wire ? As you mentioned heavy winds can be a problem if the structure is not rigid.
STRING-1.jpg

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Thanks bill. This is like a classroom for a nubie on stringing.
I have one more question.

I will do one row, about 20 - 25 ft long. If I firmly put one landscaping ( pressure treated) timber post at each end and anchor it well, then can I run steel wire between them ? I have this strong electric fence wire at hand. Or should I have one more post in the middle ? Or should I use lumber instead of wire ? As you mentioned heavy winds can be a problem if the structure is not rigid.
Attachment 67847

If you are just doing a single row you will have a problem when you are leaning the plants. When you get to the end of the row, where do you go with the plant. I use double rows about 2 1/2 feet apart in each 4 ft. wide bed. I lean the plants in opposite directions when I start lowering them and when they get to the end I just take the plant around the end and start back the other direction. The reason I am bringing this up is that I had the same problem once when I did a single row and found myself looking for somewhere to run the plants when I got to the end.

I think it would be great to use a steel wire for the top support but it takes a very strong structure and heavy wire that won't sag for it to work. I have a friend who set his up this way after seeing my method. The advantage is you can make the horizontal support wire much higher up and can use those spools to hold your line making lowering and leaning easier. The trouble with using the spools for a lower structure is that you end up with far too many fruits resting on the ground or mulch before they are even starting to ripen because the spool takes away some of your height. If I were younger I would probably set up a permanent structure using cable instead of conduit because of the added ease of leaning and lowering and most importantly not having to take down and put up the supports each year. The thing you have to realize is that the tremendous weight of the vines will put an unbelievable amount of pressure on the top wire and the tendency of most wires is to stretch a bit under that heavy pressure which can lead to some sagging or even a lot of sagging. It would more than likely mean that you will need some type of tightening method so sag could be removed easily. The other thing is that the end supporting posts will be under a great deal of stress so I would be reluctant to use wooden posts unless they were very heavy and set in concrete. Of course with only a 20 ft bed that wouldn't be such a problem because you wouldn't have too many plants weighing the line down but you would be surprised how much 10 or 12 fully loaded single stem plants can weigh.

Good luck with however you try to accomplish your testing of this method of support. There is one advantage of using the conduit which I failed to mention and that is it can be set up in almost any configuration you want and can be adapted to different size beds or gardens. It can also be moved easily from one location to another if you are trying not to plant the same crop year after year in the same beds. I am limited in the amount of changing I can do because of the size of my garden and the amount of tomatoes I try to grow in it each year so some of my beds have had tomatoes in them every year for nearly 40 years. With everything I heard about rotating crops I am surprised I can still grow them successfully especially since my beds are full and it is difficult to add much in the way of new organic matter to them now. I used to add manure and various other organic substances to my beds every year but now when I try to do this I just don't have room for much. I now am limited to adding a bit of cottonseed meal, alfalfa pellets, homemade compost and a bit of chicken manure each year.

Bill