SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
funkyhat

Allowing suckers to form adventitious roots (multi-stem tomatoes)

funkyhat
5 years ago

Couple questions about suckering which I have not been able to find the answers to using Google.


First "they" say if you are going to remove suckers from your tomatoes to remove all suckers below the first flower cluster. The reasons given are that these low-down branches will only produce many nodes of foliage and not tomatoes, etc., etc..

Second "they" say to plant tomatoes deep (either by digging a deep hole for the rootball or lying them sideways, this allows adventitious roots to form and you get a 'free' head start on developing a large root system compared to the 'usual' method of planting.


Question: can I combine this logic from the 'second' point to counter the first? Ie: I plant my tomatoes deep, but don't fill soil around the entire stem. Instead I allow low-down suckers to form, and then slow back-fill the hole/container as adventitious roots form. Since the sucker stems will be buried and therefore form adventitious roots, would this 'negate' the impact of 'splitting' the nutrients between the main and 'sucker' stems by allowing the sucker to have its own dedicated source of water/nutrients?


If it makes any difference I'm growing in containers (5gal bucket, #7 nursery pot, 15gal grow-bag) and using stakes.

Comments (9)