Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Robin Redbreast on September 09, 2008, 22:17
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what is this all about have read loads but no piccies to support the academia, can anyone point me to some good well defined stuff that will show me how please? :shock: :shock:
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On what plant ?
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any i dont really understand the principles, am a bit thick sometimes. when our lass is thick icall her blonde, maybe i am having a blonde moment! :lol:
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Ok, the principle behind it is that it plays on the plants hormone system, the very top of a growing plant produces a hormone (Auxin) that slows down the growth of the plant behind it. It's called apical dominance, basically it stops the rest of the plant competing with it. It happens in all broad leaf plants to a greater or lesser degree.
So to produce a bushy plant you pinch out the growing tip, cuts off the supply of hormone to the lateral buds lower down and they start to grow faster. very handy in flowers like sweet peas, fushias etc but does delay the 1st flowering time
Side shoots are rubbed out for a variety of reasons, mainly it's for promoting growth of the main stem and/or fruit. You rub out any side shoots on cordon type Tomatoes to get the best out of them if left to go bushy you get possibly more fruit but generally smaller and poorer quality.
With tomatoes some people do both, pinch out the top and the side shoots in the belief that this will produce a better crop of fruit, I think it's usually done at around head height or 5-7 trusses depending on the growers own preference. I don't tip the shoots I let them grow thats why my greenhouse always ends up like a jungle :lol:
I hope this helps