When is the best time to remove old leaves from tomatoes?

Tomato is a vegetable everyone is familiar with, has very high nutritional value, and is grown on a very large area in our country. When growing tomatoes, we need to do a good job of management. Especially leaf removal work, to avoid consuming too many nutrients. When removing leaves, the first thing we need to note is that what we remove are the old leaves. So when should old tomato leaves be removed? And what are the precautions? Let's take a look together below!

1. Leaf removal time

When removing old tomato leaves, we should determine the time according to the actual growth situation of the tomatoes. If the tomatoes are growing normally, then generally only at the green-ripe stage of the fruit, that is, when the tomato fruit gradually turns from green to white, can the leaves below the tomato node be removed. At other times, leaves must not be removed casually. Even if there is disease, as long as the diseased spot area has not exceeded half, it can be left alone. If the plant's leaves grow too many and too dense, then in order to improve the plant's ventilation and light penetration, 1/3 or half of the leaves can be removed, and the leaves at the bottom of the plant can be thinned out.

2. Precautions

When removing leaves, if the leaves are dark green in color and have not been harmed by pests or diseases and have not produced yellow spots, then they still have value and must not be removed. As for the lowest truss of fruit on the plant, if the leaf color gradually turns yellow, a large number of yellow spots appear, or it is seriously harmed by pests and diseases, then these old leaves should be removed in time. Then, for the yellow leaves and old leaves on the middle and lower parts of the plant caused by pest or disease damage or some other physiological disease, they should also be removed in time.

When tomatoes are close to the ripening stage, for the lowest truss of fruit on the plant, the leaves at its bottom should be removed appropriately. When removing leaves, pay attention to the number; the number of leaves removed must not be too many, with a maximum of about two at a time, to avoid damaging their growth. At the same time, we should also pay attention to maintaining a good interval between two leaf removals, at least more than 10 days. Each time leaves are removed, it should be done at noon on a sunny day, not in the morning when there is dew, to avoid the leaf wounds being infected by bacteria and causing disease. Likewise, leaf removal must not be done in the evening, to avoid the leaf wounds being unable to heal in time and becoming infected at night.

Finally, after removing leaves, we should pay attention to promptly spraying a natural brassin, that is, Jinyunzhi, used together with a medicine for preventing and controlling bacterial diseases. This can not only promote photosynthesis in healthy leaves, but also prevent the wounds from leaf removal from being infected by bacteria, avoiding effects on the normal growth of tomatoes. If we do not pay attention to the above precautions when removing leaves, then the impact on tomato growth will also be very great. Either it causes severe disease, or it causes leaf damage, too little nutrient accumulation in the fruit, and the appearance of hollow fruit, reduced yield, and so on.

The above is a brief introduction to when to remove old tomato leaves. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and we hope it can be helpful to everyone!