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For many of us with aquaponic gardens, the issue is not how big can the tomato plant grow so much as can I get fruit from it? In my watching, reading and asking about tomatoes this year one trick seemed to be somewhat consistent among the more advanced gardeners. Much like it helps to remove the suckers from the lower part of the tomato plant if you want to keep it controlled, there is a trick for encouraging the tomato plant to fruit. However, it seems like it would do more damage than anything else ... but it's exactly what I've been doing to this plant and I feel that tomato speaks for itself. There are a couple of different things that will sprout out of the stem of your tomato plant as it grows and they are all useful. More or less. The large leaf stems that sprout out before the suckers are produced are the victims of this pruning session. While they are needed by the plant to produce the sugars for the fruit we all desire, they can still be cut to our advantage. When they are cut back to 3 or 4 individual leaves on the sun leaf the plant will change how it produces its new growth. Basically the plant is tricked into a state of stress which seems to make it want to produce fruit. At least, it's working like a charm on this tomato plant. Please comment below if you have any tricks for making your tomatoes more fruitful and feel free to include any links. (I'll rescue them from the spam filter ... even if it takes a day or so!) Thanks for watching!