Thieves?

The days are getting longer again, the power of the sun is increasing more. Tomato plants are very dependent on sunlight. If we have just put up new plants, they need less light because there are no tomatoes on them yet. Because we get more and more light and the plants don't have so many bunches yet, at this stage they more easily keep energy they get from the sun. To prevent the plant from having too much energy left over, we leave extra thieves. Thieves? Those are side shoots of the plant. These thieves eventually grow into an extra plant. This way, the plant can distribute its energy better.
In addition, we need to buy fewer plants from the plant grower because we make the extra plants ourselves. So the plant stays better in energy balance and it also saves us costs.

The extra plants are needed towards summer otherwise the plants would not be able to release their energy. A tomato plant has about 9 bunches at the time of harvest. The plant divides its energy between these and uses part of it to produce new leaves/trusses.
We express the quantity of plants in plants per m2. At the Schipluiden location where I work, we start with 1.75 plants per m2, in February we go to 3.5 plants per m2 and this is where we finish.

Leon van der Zalm - Schenkeveld Schipluiden crop specialist