Topping off tomato sucker/production stems is a great way to increase tomato yields on your tomato plants. It helps manage pests, diseases, and plant size but keeps more flowers on the plants. This leads to more tomatoes.
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Thanks for the timely advice. I was just about to do some tomato plant maintenance!
That's a good technique I might borrow it. I have 18 indeterminate tomatoes growing up on string, my 4 Cherokee Purple plants when they put out a cluster of blooms they are continuing to grow into a productive stem. I've been pruning them off. I've had this happen occasionally but not on almost every cluster. I have my determinates in a weave and at this point I can see they are loaded up big time. If they stay healthy I should have plenty of tomatoes and lots of canning to do.
I'm confused – Doesn't heat cause tomatoes to ripen? Why promote shade around fruit clusters?
Are they suckers or sucklers?
I am embarrassed that I didn't know that.
This is practical knowledge that I imagine a larger percentage of the population knew 100 years ago.
Do you realize how many varieties I have avoided despite really wanting to grow them because I didn't want to deal with their size?
I am a Grade-A idiot! 🙄🤣
All indeterminate tomato suckers will produce fruit. The suckers that begin at the leaf just below a fruit cluster (every third leaf/sucker) are the ones that will grow at the same rate as the main stem. I train my indeterminate tomato varieties to a single stem. But if I want a 2-stem plant, I allow the sucker that forms just under the first fruit cluster to become the second stem because it will grow at the same rate as the main stem, and then I prune out the rest of the suckers as they develop at each leaf. If I want a 3-stem plant, I allow the sucker that forms just under the second fruit cluster to become the third stem.
I tie a string to the bottom of each stem, wrap the stem around it as it grows, and tie it to the top of a 6 foot tall trellis, cutting the stems when they reach the top.
About a week and a half ago we had an overnight freeze come through and it really hit my tomatoes plants hard. Also got some leaves of my squash. Tomatoes were doing so well but now they have to recover, not sure all will survive. Oh well, that's the life of a garden. You have such a beautiful garden. Always enjoy your informative videos. Thank you. Gods blessings 🙏
Thank you…super useful to manage size
Thank you very much. I have a tomatoes plant that looks like it's gonna die but has a lot of tomatoes on them. if I cut the stem half way down will it grow out and get more tomatoes this season??
This is pretty much what I've decided to do this year. I'm only pruning once a week and if the sucker already has flowers developing I'll leave them.
This is exactly what I needed to see right now! Thank you for sharing this information!
I have heard of – and used – the topping of the plant as I am getting to the end of my season … but never used this "during" the season. See? This is why I love your channel. I'm always learning. Thank you!
That's exactly how I do mine. I couldn't bring myself to cut off the flower clusters on the suckers, so I keep them and just trim the growing top. Then when the plant is getting too tall, I let a lower sucker live and become the new main stem.
Won't the 'topping off' cause the sucker stem to 'sucker' down where the original sucker came off of the 'main' stem. I think it will continue to sucker. It is indeterminate and it WILL continue to sucker.
I accidently topped one of my cherry tomatoes in late May this year, when it was only 2 feet tall. Not sure how that happened. But then that plant started ripening tomatoes way faster than the others, and I was able to get 30-50 very early cherry tomatoes in June. I plan on doing it every year now.
That is what happened to one of my plants, then I top mine. Production increased after the rain finally got clusters of tomatoes.
i've planted a bunch of cherry tomato plants on a cattle panel arch, i was thinking about pruning this way; thanks for confirming my thought process, good video.
Awesome 👌
Excellent! This is what I ended up doing with many of my plants this year that were getting out of hand.
The hail storm topped a bunch of my tomatoes
Awesome! I have been following you for a few years and I have learned a lot from you! Thank you Gary! 😝👏🏼
After your tomato sucker is done producing tomatoes do you take the whole sucker of all together?
Will the smoke from Canada negatively impact our growing season? How will it effect our gardens? Is there anything we can do to help our plants thrive?
Great tip! I usually end up missing a sucker and find it after flowers appear. It's hard to remove a sucker with flowers since we have a short season. Topping it, instead, just makes sense!
What is the fuzzy white thing at 3:48? It looks like a fuzzy caterpillar.
There you go. The effect is to reduce the primary apical stem growth too reducing height. Was just mentioning this to a guy for cucumbers. Same same for cucurbits. Another thing that you can do is let all suckers grow with a few leaves and top. The new growth is healthier than the older, lower leaves that you can now cut off. Older leaves are first to show signs of weakness and disease.
Perfect timing! I let my yellow pears go crazy thinking they were determinant (they are not) and I think I'm going to do this with them to tame them. Thank you.
My second yr here in SE Nth Carolina, I tried pruning aggressively on indeterminate tomatoes, but, I lost so much growth? I don't have the ability to vine high. This yr I'm pruning low, but being careful not to prune too much higher to attempt to avoid sun scalding. However, this yr, there's so much rain & heat together, even though I'm constantly pruning spotted, yellowing leaves, pests have taken over! Not only triple digit indexes, but won't stop raining enough to spray for pests😢 within a day I'm loosing half my harvest?😢
Plus over half of my determinate tomatoes went wild early with so much rain? Weren't sposed to grow like indeterminate??
Can you top off other plants to encourage more fruiting? I've heard you can top off cucumbers to encourage more production of side shoots where the fruit grows. But what about other plants?