Culling

[AprilMayJune]

So this is something I observed last year that I'm trying to stay ahead of for this season.

We rarely have an issue with fruit set in our yard because we are lucky to have a good-sized population of various bees, and for better or for worse our yard is INSANELY windy.

I had three Roma plants that were enormous, very healthy, and absolutely COVERED in flowers which pretty much all set fruit. The resulting fruit looked fine and tasted good, but they were all much smaller than a typical Roma. I had another plant from the same packet in a different spot in the garden and its fruit was closer to what I expected, but the plant was not as large. I figured I screwed something up but I haven't been able to figure out what (I thought maybe the soil was lacking some essential nutrient, though the plants themselves looked amazing, so I wasn't sure what it could be.)

Then I saw some mention here and elsewhere recently about culling flowers/young fruits so that the plant will focus on growth for a smaller number of tomatoes and the resulting fruit will be larger. Is this a thing I should plan to stay on top of if I end up with other plants this year that are similarly loaded in flowers? How do I know how many flowers is too many? I'm not looking to grow the biggest tomatoes on the planet or anything, just fruit that's closer to the "correct" size for the cultivar in question.

[emma818436]

If you want more fruit but smaller, don't cull the flowers.
If you want less fruit but bigger cull the flowers.
I don't know if culling the flowers make the fruit any bigger. I only cull when its the end of the season and I need tomatoes to be ripe fast.

[b54red]

I would wait for them to set and then decide how many of the small maters to remove. If you cull the flowers the remaining ones may not set as well as you hope.

Bill