Suckers???

11 years ago

To me it appears that the suckers grow more tomatoes, so if that's the case why trim them off? It looks like the thing below the sucker--the "leaf branch"?--is what needs to be trimmed off. So far most of the time I take people's advice and trim the suckers, but when the suckers have blossums or are a lot bigger than the leaf branch I leave the suckers and trim the branch. From my pov the branch seems like the sucker and the sucker seems like what we would want to keep. The sucker always seems to grow nice and strong, while the leaf branch seems to be sort of shriveled with poor leaves. Do those branches even grow tomatoes at all? Looking at mine I see several succers with blossums, I haven't noticed any on the other branches.

Comments (2)

digdirt2
11 years ago
Nothing needs to be trimmed off. Read the FAQ here and through all the discussions about pruning. There is really no such thing as 'suckers'. They are lateral branches and they do produce fruit.

The claim that you must remove what are called suckers is old way-outdated wives tales spread by folks who don't understand how tomatoes grow.

Dave
coconut_head
11 years ago
Also, the things you are calling branches are leaf stems. You do not want to trim these off unless they are on the bottom of a mature plant. This is what the plant uses to collect energy from the sun. They are pretty good to keep. The more energy the plant can collect and use from the sun, the more energy it can put into making new plant parts, which if all else is good, could be more tomatoes.

CH