Is Pruning Tomatoes actually worth it?! #tomatopruning #howtogrowtomatoes #growingtomatoes

[Diseaseisreversible]

I always leave my suckers on cherry tomatoes . They don’t make a difference on smaller varieties. The ones that need pruning are the big beefsteaks because they require a lot more energy to produce big fruit

[TheNativeTwo]

I am an arborist, but also a gardener/ farmer. I often see people prune plants without really understanding WHY they are pruning the plant. I like that you are experimenting. That’s a good way to learn. But it may help if before you decide to prune a plant, understand what your objectives truly are. This may seem simple, but trust me, you, and many others, have not thought enough about this. I have been thinking about it for two decades, and still learning. The more I think, the more I learn, and the less I prune and when i prune i do it with a clear objective in mind.

All that being said, let me give you some general advice. Fruit is produced on branches. More branches means more fruit. But too many branches produces smaller fruit. There are two ways to get bigger fruits if they are too small: thinning the fruit early in the season, or removing some of the branches, with the latter being a more permanent solution. If your plant has small fruit and you want bigger fruit, that’s your objective, and so you would then decide to prune to get bigger fruit. However, once the fruit are at their genetic maximum, removing any more branches would just reduce yield and not give you bigger fruit. Once you have achieved the genetic maximum size, your objective may change to getting maximum yield at that size. The specifics on how many branches is “too many”, that starts to reduce size of fruits, depends on so many factors that it really takes experience with a specific variety, species, and growing conditions of the plant to know your optimum.

But you may have other objectives, that may compete. For example, maybe you want it to look neat and tidy, or maybe you want to train it to only grow up a trellis, for aesthetics. So you remove side branches, reducing your yield. In your case you compensated for the reduced yield by leaving 3 “suckers.” A reasonable plan. I wouldnt call them suckers, they’re just branches imho, we typically use the term suckers for the branches that come out of the base, not from an internode, and we call them water sprouts when they come out of the canopy, again not from an internode. Both of these are signs of stress. Those look like typical branching not caused by stress.

When I was young, I read a lot of gardening and arboriculture books, especially about pruning. And I also experimented, like you. These books often have pruning “rules” to follow, like instructions or guides. And I break those rules, and in the process discover why the rule exists, and then can also decide if it is a useful rule for my objectives.

[speciauxability]

You don't prune them to get more tomatoes only to get bigger tomatoes. It would be a better difference to get the average tomato weight to see if it really makes much of a difference

[techi]

I have some tomato plants inside my apartment that I brought in when it got cold and they’ve just continued to fruit. They climbed my other house plants, clinging to the shelves under the grow lights, and I get like a dozen little cherry tomatoes per week.

[unnamed]

I never pull suckers off my cherry tomatoes. I use that technique on larger tomatoes but cherry tomatoes need to be left to bush out if you want to get a good yield.

[allenanderson]

Pruning low on the plant near the soil may help prevent fungal blight.
Removing unproductive material allows the plant to invest more energy into production.

[DS-qyqv]

Technically you should only take the "suckers" off of the lower quarter so the fruit is concentrated where the light is and off of the ground

[tammyi]

Last year I pruned. This year I just let the plants grow as nature would have it. LOTS more fruit this year and time saved🙌🏼

[richm]

A big variable on this experiment is the length of your hot weather growing season. I have a 5-month growing season and about 2 and 1/2 months is reliably hot enough to grow tomatoes. I'll leave two suckers low on the plant off the main stem so that's my three stem equivalent. So I think I'm in the same situation as you. Then I will cut off suckers and some non-productive branches above not because they won't produce abundant tomatoes but because I don't want all that growing energy to go into growing excess greeney delaying tomato production and producing branches that are not going to have time to produce ripe tomatoes before it starts getting cold. I need to get tomatoes growing on those stalks or I'm going to wind up with low production just cuz I run out of time to get ripe tomatoes on them.

[julietteoscaralphanovember]

My dad grows the best tomatoes! I never like tomatoes until I ate the ones he grew. His tomatoes are so sweet. His secret, he was an avid fisherman and when he would get home from a fishing trip, he would filet the fish he caught and bury all the leftovers, tail, head, guts etc in his garden soil. For years people traveled from all over just to get his tomatoes. Then, after he retired, and aged, he didn't go fishing anymore. The tomatoes for several years after, just tasted like tomatoes, meh. But the last few years he's been going to our local fish market and the guy gives him all the heads, tails, gits, etc, so he's been burying them in his garden. This year, his tomatoes were back! It makes such a difference in the flavor of the tomatoes!

[faithm]

I was getting very little this year from my tomato plants until I cut most leaves and suckers. I am amazed that it has now become my biggest harvest so late in the season.

[taken]

I trim down to a single vine. Better for airflow/less disease and I can keep trimming the lower leaves higher up as the fruit ripens. Keeps things tidy and compact. Our plants were 13 ft tall before we finally topped them; I just couldn’t reach them anymore! I grew 62 tomato plants this year and harvested 5-10lbs of tomatoes every two days. Definitely couldn’t do that amount of variety if I let them bush out. Square foot and single vine is the way to go for us!

[danglesbanglesmoreco]

Prune some for starting new trees and trellis the rest. If lightning and soil nutrients are just right and you water sufficiently, you should get a bumper crop. That is, barring any diseases or pest issues.

[Lumencraft-]

According to my wife you're not supposed to sucker cherry tomato plants. She does that on certain varieties of regular tomatoes to get a bigger yield.

[gotkittys]

Here's a good tip: rather than heavy pruning, just trim flowers so the plant doesn't try to make too many at one time.

[naimee]

On my cherry or small tomatoes I always leave the suckers on and prune ALL the leaves below the last fruit sets

[crabmansteve]

I leave all the suckers on any plant that produces smaller fruits, if you're growing big beefsteaks or other large vegetables i prune suckers to maximize the size of the fruits.

[edenstarr]

I don't prune determinate varieties and only prune any tomatoes about 6 weeks from harvest. I prune suckers AND flowers. That gives me a massive yield and then a concentrated ripening. Give them space, and then pressure them to set seed. Plants innately NEED to seed before they die. If you take away all other options, the fruit set is what they put all their nutrients into developing. 😉✌️

[jowiemonster]

I would say pruning tomatoes is only needed for commercial use but if it's for home, go for as many as you can get. What's the use if you get 15 large tomatoes, when you can get 50 medium-sized ones .

[ricksanchez]

Yep. I have, well had, always big on pruning suckers. No more. Had a volunteer I determinate pop up that got zero attention. Twice the yield, easy, maybe three times, any other individual plant.

The way you experiment, you might enjoy trying a under the patio. Basically pull one brick from a brick patio or walkway. I use a drill and a 1.5" spade bit to till about 8" down and all around. Drop in a plant, put a half brick back. Great results for almost no weeding. There is really something to brick, whether the vermiculite, or whole bricks, they hold moisture and nutrients, and the garden loves them.

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