Both on the right are suckers, you have the main stem trellised. You don’t have to remove them, but as you can see they get unwieldy. Definitely don’t allow any tertiary suckers.
I personally remove *most* suckers just to keep things organized.
Chuckysmalls01
Technically yes that whole right limb is a sucker, but at this point you’ve let it grow too long that I personally wouldn’t remove it. If you are going to remove it with how large it is I’d be growing another plant out of it. Not just pulling it off to throw it away.
You do need to put some sort of support on that sucker as well if you keep it like tie it up as well like it looks like you have your main stem. The way it’s going out once it gets much more weight on it or tomatoes it’s going to drag itself down to the ground and kink or break most likely.
As the other person said the branch coming out to the right about halfway up the plant is also a sucker, and again you’ve let it grow pretty long before pulling it. If you are going to try to keep your suckers pruned off it’s best to pick them off when they are like 2-5 inches or so long. If you wait as long as you have your plant has already put so much effort into growing it that big you are hurting yourself more throwing it away than keeping it.
nmacaroni
There’s a big misconception in the tomato growing community.
A sucker is only a sucker, until it establishes itself as a secondary stem.
A “smaller” tomato plant with 3 main steams, will not produce less tomatoes than a larger plant with 1 main stem… In fact, it’s usually the opposite, that multi-stem plants produce MORE fruits.
What you want to do is remove ALL the mass of suckers when they are tiny, so a tomato plant isn’t trying to produce 20 main stems or something crazy. Though in theory, you could just let a tomato plant go totally wild and do its own thing.
It’s really just a personal preference of space management.
I know folks will talk about air flow and disease on free growing plants. Well, if you are pruning back and maintaining a single stem tomato, why would you suddenly NOT prune and maintain a three or four stemmed plant?
In the end its half a dozen of one and six of another.
If this was my plant, as I have plenty of space, I’d let the tomato tomato.
3 Comments
Both on the right are suckers, you have the main stem trellised. You don’t have to remove them, but as you can see they get unwieldy. Definitely don’t allow any tertiary suckers.
I personally remove *most* suckers just to keep things organized.
Technically yes that whole right limb is a sucker, but at this point you’ve let it grow too long that I personally wouldn’t remove it. If you are going to remove it with how large it is I’d be growing another plant out of it. Not just pulling it off to throw it away.
You do need to put some sort of support on that sucker as well if you keep it like tie it up as well like it looks like you have your main stem. The way it’s going out once it gets much more weight on it or tomatoes it’s going to drag itself down to the ground and kink or break most likely.
As the other person said the branch coming out to the right about halfway up the plant is also a sucker, and again you’ve let it grow pretty long before pulling it. If you are going to try to keep your suckers pruned off it’s best to pick them off when they are like 2-5 inches or so long. If you wait as long as you have your plant has already put so much effort into growing it that big you are hurting yourself more throwing it away than keeping it.
There’s a big misconception in the tomato growing community.
A sucker is only a sucker, until it establishes itself as a secondary stem.
A “smaller” tomato plant with 3 main steams, will not produce less tomatoes than a larger plant with 1 main stem… In fact, it’s usually the opposite, that multi-stem plants produce MORE fruits.
What you want to do is remove ALL the mass of suckers when they are tiny, so a tomato plant isn’t trying to produce 20 main stems or something crazy. Though in theory, you could just let a tomato plant go totally wild and do its own thing.
It’s really just a personal preference of space management.
I know folks will talk about air flow and disease on free growing plants. Well, if you are pruning back and maintaining a single stem tomato, why would you suddenly NOT prune and maintain a three or four stemmed plant?
In the end its half a dozen of one and six of another.
If this was my plant, as I have plenty of space, I’d let the tomato tomato.