The greenhouse manager who swore by pruning at dawn, I called it nonsense until June

My mentor at the community garden told me to cut back my tomatoes before 7am or not at all. I figured it was old wives' stuff, so I pruned at noon for two weeks straight. The plants drooped hard and two of them caught a fungal spot I'd never seen before. Out of spite I tried her way one morning and the cuts dried clean by evening, no wilt at all. Anyone else get handed advice that felt like superstition but held up under actual test?

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the_jason20d ago

So the "cuts dried clean by evening" part is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but I'm not buying that the clock itself is magic. Water pressure and humidity are totally different at 7am versus noon, so the sun angle probably did most of the work, not some garden voodoo. Glad your plants are happy, but I'd still bet a lazy overcast afternoon works just as well as dawn on a cloudy day.