Tomatoe plants - Suckers - what to do?

16 years ago

Hi All,

Well the garden is growing with great success. Tiny Tim Cherry Tomatoes are starting to set fruit. And generally flowering like crazy! Yippee!

Suckers - what do I do? Some say pinch them off, others say leave to add protective bushiness for fruit.

I would really appreciate some advice on this.

Thanks all! Happy Growing.

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Comments (6)

schwankmoe
16 years ago
i don't worry too much about suckers on indeterminate plants. if it's there, i'll pull it. if it's right by some blossoms, i'll leave it alone. if it gets too long before i get to it, i just keep it a little tidy and leave a few leaves on it.

i figure i have enough things to worry about, mites, aphids, blossom drop, BER etc to really spend too much time on suckers.
gonefishin
16 years ago
I do not pinch, prune or pull anything off, they know what they are doing, let em grow. I guess that I can understand perhaps if your space is very limited or something, but I have read that the plant tries to balance the top growth to match the growth of the roots. Works for me.
Bill P.
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If this is the same plant, a lady in my violet club has Gillian. She brought it to a meeting for show and tell. It was a beautiful plant with large white flowers and she said it lives on a side table under a regular reading lamp (think beside her sofa) and she said it hasn't stopped blooming in months. She had rooted babies from a leaf and gave me one. Mine is a small plant that hasn't yet bloomed but it has not had suckers either. I do have some mini plants that all they seem to do is sucker and I don't get much bloom from them...as they are small, it is hard to keep up with cutting the suckers off. Also recently I bought an evergrace at Lowes, it was loaded with bloom and I got 5 good sized suckers from it that I potted up for plants and several more that were just small and I tossed in trash. Maybe it being a space violet? I think some variety plants just sucker more than others and the suckers take the strengh of the plant to grow so less energy goes to blooming. It does take a little time for a sucker to root and grow enough to bloom. Hope it works out for you. tish
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My Early Girl has the same side branch that look like a 2nd plant because we planted them trenched on their sides. I just gave it another stake for the side branch. In our climate we have such a short window of time for the tomatoes to produce ... let the plant grow as desired. I don't have any container tomatoes, so your watering might need to be different. After August 1st we no longer water to encourage the plant to ripen the fruit. If we have very warm weather and the plants start to wilt we will water just enough to stop wilting. After Sept. 1st we cut off the blossoms and any small fruit because they are not going to mature anyway. Forces the plant to ripen what it has already set. Some people cover their plants to provide protection from 1st frosts and continue ripening. Here by the time frost comes in October the nightly lows are below 50, so essentially refrigerating the tomatoes. We harvest them instead to ripen inside. Heat ripens them not light. Hope that helps~ Corrine
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Corrigan, I've seen rooted suckers from dwarf plants continue flowering as they were rooting in a jar of water, and actually set fruit while developing new roots and before transplanted into garden soil or container mix. Generally, rooting a sucker that's four to six inches long is about the same as dealing with a transplant of the same size with regard to fruit production timelines. You will find some discussion to the contrary at some Webpages where they'll claim rooting suckers will give you a jumpstart compared to transplanting seedlings in the ordinary way. After reading some of those discussions, I played around with rooting longer side shoots ... like 12 - 18 inches in length ... and did get some ripe tomatoes in about 60 days from indeterminates (from which the cuttings came) that otherwise took 80 days or more to ripen fruit. But then the cuttings were growing in warmer weather later in the summer, right? Again, the only ones that continued to open the buds that were on the cuttings when snipped and subsequently set fruit during the rooting process for me were dwarf types like Husky Red, Heartland, and another one I got from a nursery last year but can't remember the name just now.
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"Sucker" is a misnomer for lateral branches. These appear in the forks of the main stem.Â They do not "suck" energy or production from the plant.Â In fact they are an important productive part of the plant.Â The leaves produce food for the plant and these branches flower and produce fruit.Â You will get fewer fruit if you remove these branches although the fruit on the remaining plant may be larger.Â If you are growing vertically and training a single stem to climb, you would remove these and any other side shoots. If you remove too much foliage you may experience sun scald.Â Some who post here prune their plants. Some don't. I never have and have been happy with my results.Â You should try some of each and compare your yields and make your own decision.Good luck with your toms. Jim
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timmy1
16 years ago
If you want larger and earlier fruit, pull them off. Suckering also gives you a more even harvest, cluster one, cluster two...rather than waves of nothing then way too many.

If you sucker, keep it to just one growth stem. This will keep all you're fruiting even and in a row.
sunsi
16 years ago
I try pulling suckers off at the beginning each season but you reach a point where it gets out of hand and the plants become intertwined so much that finding suckers is near impossible that's when I give up.

This year I think I'll try, gonefishin's recommendation and just leave the plants to do their thing.
vegomatic
16 years ago
You can let them grow a bit, then cut, root and transplant them like a seedling.

Suckers will make their own flower trusses if left alone.

It seems to me if you pluck them, the plant just gets frustrated and sets more and more. When I do battle with pruning, the plant always eventually wins. I just try to keep them somewhat in check. I like the jungle look in my greenhouse, anyway!

-Ed
digdirt2
16 years ago
Suckers: To Prune or Not to Prune

;-)

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Tomatoe plants - Suckers - what to do?

Comments (6)

schwankmoe

gonefishin

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timmy1

sunsi

vegomatic

digdirt2

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