The nursery industry in Almería constitutes the first step of intensive horticulture in the area. Annual tomato transplant production amounts to almost 300 million plants. Transplant quality and early yield response in tomato plants are currently dependent on the use of chemical growth regulators. However, nutrient conditioning may be a useful alternative technique to obtain adequate transplant quality, faster resumption of growth after transplanting and a higher early yield. It should, therefore, be possible to regulate the vegetative and early reproductive growth rate of tomato by controlling the balance between N and P during transplant production in the nursery. As may be expected, the maximum effect on growth regulation was obtained with the application of the chemical growth regulator clormecuat. Nevertheless, our results show that similar growth reduction can be achieved by maintaining low N and high P levels in nutritive solution during the first stages of transplant production, and increasing P more than N shortly before transplanting. When chemical growth regulator was used, resumption of vegetative growth was delayed for more than two weeks after transplanting. In contrast, nutritively conditioned transplants resumed growth almost immediately. In addition, fruit weight and early yield are more than double in the nutrient conditioned tomato transplant. Nutritive conditioning induces changes in transplant growth that are helpful in preparing the plant for the resumption of post-transplant growth and for increasing early yield production.