Training techniques pepper and tomatoes

Hello everyone,

This is my first of many posts in this section. I decided I wanted to start growing DWC tomatoes and bell pepper in a grow tent, but I'd like to know what marijuana training techniques can be used. So far I've mostly been researching about tomatoes and haven't started too much on the bell peppers yet.

I've read in a forum they can be super cropped, definitely going to try that. Can they be topped to produce more sites or would that slow them down? I was thinking of building a scrog net all the way around, but would I be able to main-line the plant instead and then maybe scrog that at the top? Anyone have any experience with this? Thoughts?

Anyone?

topping definitely helps for more shoots, what you also have to consider is the tomato species, some flower throughout the summer, others set all their fruits once or twice a season, staking them is the primary method of training,but to be honest you can train them in just about any direction, I had two heirlooms on my balcony trained along the balcony railing for maximum sun exposure because they barley get 6-7 hours of direct sun, and it was protected enough that I was still producing up until the second frost, and I ate tomatoes just about everyday last summer.

You can use most techniques on peppers, LST, topping etc. i`ve tied peppers down so they`ve grown horizontally. With determinate tomato varieties you may not gain much as they dont grow that tall and bush out naturally. Indeterminates can be trained to keep the height reasonable.

Here's the world's largest tomato plant, a cherry tomato plant at Epcot Center. That's one hell of a scrog.

Damnnn! that thing must eat its nutes up like cherries, lol pun intended. As you can see tomatoes is a very forgiving plant when it comes to training.

Pick off the first few blossoms on your peppers. Make them grow a ton more. Works with the toms also.

I have no experience with tomatoes but I've been growing a bunch of bell peppers indoors for a few months now. I'll take pictures when I get home if I remember. I pick all of the blooms until I'm ready for it to fruit (in about a month or so), this causes the plant to focus on vegetative growth instead of fruiting. Once they're about a foot tall and have 4 or more main branches I essentially lollipop all of the lower growth except the top 4 or 5 nodes of each branch and mulch my planters with the trimmings. I'm not sure how topping them would do as they decide how they're going to branch by themselves. I have one that did an almost perfect 4 way split and formed 4 huge branches from almost the bottom of the plant. You could try super cropping with some support. A Scrog style set up would definitely be helpful to spread out the canopy.

I trained 5-6 cherry tomato plants around the top of a 3ft garden fence last year because I had nowhere else to put them or way to support them. It seemed to work well, I picked a lot of tomatoes off of them. I just weaved the vines in and out of the fencing as they grew..

In my experience you don't really need to top a tomato plant, it will produce plenty of vines, if anything you might want to prune some vines off if you're going for bigger sized tomatoes with a variety that grows large tomatoes. Pruning them down to a few main stalks is an easy way to get some big 2lb sized tomatoes because it's putting all of its energy into them. But I'd rather grow more tomatoes than a couple huge ones.

Dave's Not Here said:

I trained 5-6 cherry tomato plants around the top of a 3ft garden fence last year because I had nowhere else to put them or way to support them. It seemed to work well, I picked a lot of tomatoes off of them. I just weaved the vines in and out of the fencing as they grew..

In my experience you don't really need to top a tomato plant, it will produce plenty of vines, if anything you might want to prune some vines off if you're going for bigger sized tomatoes with a variety that grows large tomatoes. Pruning them down to a few main stalks is an easy way to get some big 2lb sized tomatoes because it's putting all of its energy into them. But I'd rather grow more tomatoes than a couple huge ones.

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My grandfather does this and has for decades. Funnily enough, he calls it lollipopping lol.
I've always thought that smaller tomatoes had a better flavor profile instead of just a bunch of bland mater juice that the 1lb+ ones seem to have in my experience.

Midwest Weedist said:

My grandfather does this and has for decades. Funnily enough, he calls it lollipopping lol.
I've always thought that smaller tomatoes had a better flavor profile instead of just a bunch of bland mater juice that the 1lb+ ones seem to have in my experience.

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I lollypop the way we think of it if I stake them up otherwise the bottom leaves start getting blight and various fungal diseases from the soil splashing on them when it starts raining more later in the season.

Dave's Not Here said:

I lollypop the way we think of it if I stake them up otherwise the bottom leaves start getting blight and various fungal diseases from the soil splashing on them when it starts raining more later in the season.

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That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that aspect of it.

I've been out digging holes in the lawn for my tomatoes, my no till method. I got one row of nine holes, 4-5 gallons each, a few feet apart dug up in a an hour or so. The ground is like butter right now except for the tree roots. I might make them a little bigger but these will grow tomato plants 9+ft tall and bigger than I'll be able to support well.

Then after the tomatoes get a foot or so in size I'll lay cardboard down all around them and put some straw and leaves on top of it to sheet compost what's left of the lawn. Then next spring I can go out and pull what's left of the cardboard off, rake it up, get rid of a few persistent grass/weeds and I have another spot to plant whatever in.

It must be that time of year cos i`ve been out hosing down my outdoor growing setup ready for this seasons toms. My dog has been known to dig holes in the lawn but he`s never planted any toms in them

I know that kesaber said he was growing DWC so this is off topic ..... but if you let your tomatoes do their own thing ...... dont feed them or water much ..... they wont make as much fruit but it tastes alot better .... i get volunteer tomatoes every year from the compost pile and i just let them go wild and do nothing to them they always taste 10 x better then the ones from the garden

I just went to a seminar with Steve goto, the seminar was on organic heirloom tomatoes. He's been growing them for over 30 years and is well versed your should look him up.

He grows in 20g pots, 1 foot on center with a 15' aluminum stake, prunes to create 2 runners And ties them to the stake at every flower node while removing all side branches for maximum effect. Also harvest and then water, never harvest after watering for the most robust flavor.

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