more stupid questions (pruning)

[2thumbs]

I have white mold on the outside of my newspaper cells and green mold on the top of the soil. 3 cells even had a yellow/brown wavy fungus (mushroom?) on top of the cell. Can I expect problems with my good-looking tomato plants (from seeds)? 5 weeks old and 10" to 12" tall. Need to transplant but ol' man winter keeps hanging on in North TX.

[Emeoba69]

Originally Posted by Worth1

You probably struck on one of the most controversial subjects there is about tomato plants.

One the definition of sucker.
Many here call suckers any branch that forms on the plant.
It isn't, this is the natural way a tomato plant grows, 'just like a tree.
A sucker comes up from the ground next to the roots, corn has suckers.
Many other trees do too like a pomegranate.

The big leaves coming out of the side of the stalk need to be pruned as soon as they hit the ground or before.
The reason is the dirt will get on them and cause diseases to form.
As the plant grows and these leaves start touch the ground prune them.
You 18 inch tall tomato plant should look like a little palm tree after this pruning.

I have a question about the red-ed statement. I have been wondering about this and googling has only lead to the arm pit sucker pinching answers. Most of my tomatoes have branches/stems that grow from the soil level off of the main stem but aren't started from the pit of another branch. Are these "suckers" as the arm pit ones are that zap the plants energy? Ive never heard anything about them so Ive left them and they form flowers/fruit. Should they be pruned? Doe pruning them help over all production or not? Is there a name for these type of branches/stems?

Sorry if I bumped a dead thread. Searching has yielded little for me.


Thanks.

[Anthony_Toronto]

My understanding is that calling them a sucker, in the context that it is used, is not accurate. Does anyone have any evidence that additional stems on tomato plants 'suck' any energy from the plant as opposed to providing enough photosynthesis to justify themselves, while producing more fruit (which is presumably the whole point of this)?

[Labradors2]

Originally Posted by Emeoba69

I have a question about the red-ed statement. I have been wondering about this and googling has only lead to the arm pit sucker pinching answers. Most of my tomatoes have branches/stems that grow from the soil level off of the main stem but aren't started from the pit of another branch. Are these "suckers" as the arm pit ones are that zap the plants energy? Ive never heard anything about them so Ive left them and they form flowers/fruit. Should they be pruned? Doe pruning them help over all production or not? Is there a name for these type of branches/stems?

Sorry if I bumped a dead thread. Searching has yielded little for me.


Thanks.

That's why the word "sucker" is such a misnomer for tomatoes as they do not suck the plant's energy. All that happens after pruning is that we will not get as many tomatoes as we would have done, had we left them alone.

Stems that grow out from the bottom can be pruned or left. I usually prune out the really low ones very early because I do not want leaves and fruit dragging on the ground.

HTH,
Linda

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Emeoba69

I have a question about the red-ed statement. I have been wondering about this and googling has only lead to the arm pit sucker pinching answers. Most of my tomatoes have branches/stems that grow from the soil level off of the main stem but aren't started from the pit of another branch. Are these "suckers" as the arm pit ones are that zap the plants energy? Ive never heard anything about them so Ive left them and they form flowers/fruit. Should they be pruned? Doe pruning them help over all production or not? Is there a name for these type of branches/stems?

Sorry if I bumped a dead thread. Searching has yielded little for me.


Thanks.

I will only be able to help from my humble opinion.

The term sucker or tillers comes from corn as far as I know and here is what they have to say about them
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...ByL2BhNJkwq3RA
The tomato plant naturally produce so called root or stump suckers and also natural branching of the plant itself.

Pruning tomato plants was done and still is today to two or three branches so they can be trained on a stake.
This was for commercial production.

All of these leaves and branches on a tomato plant will produce energy to grow the fruit.
So if a person were to want bigger but less fruit they would want to remove some of the set fruit; not the leaves and branches.
If the plant is getting plenty of nutrients then I would think there would be no need for pruning.
If you will take a look at fruit trees the grower will remove sometimes half of the fruit for 2 reasons.
One is so the fruit wont break the branches and the other is to have larger fruit.
The only reason they cut out branches is to keep the tree healthy and from over growing.
And to shape the tree.

Since a tomato is an annual there is, (in my opinion) no need to prune unless you want to open it up for air flow.

Many times on a tomato plant the first and largest fruit are from what is called fused blossoms.
This sometimes misleads people to think the suckers or some other factor is causing the later fruit to be smaller.

So here is my realistic view on the question you asked.
You are growing tomatoes and you have tomatoes growing on what people call suckers.
If for what ever reason would you not want to eat a sucker tomato?

This is for everybody.
Don't over think the tomato plant it knows what it is doing.
It has been around longer than we have.

Give it what it needs and keep any lower leaves trimmed from the ground.
Don't splash dirt on the plant while watering.
Cut off any bad looking leaves as the year goes by and it will be just fine.


Worth

[cythaenopsis]

^^ +1 on what you said, Worth.

I think I pulled too many suckers from my Black Krim plants last year. My plants did not suffer any diseases aside from some BER afflictions, but they weren't very productive. I do think that containers present significant challenges. But... wouldn't a plant produce fewer suckers if it sensed that it didn't have enough resources for them?

I pulled some of my plants suckers in the first few weeks, but then let them form. I actually have a bit too many on my Russian Oxheart plants but so far they seem to be doing fine with producing fruit. I'd much rather have more smaller tomatoes than fewer big ones anyway. Just better risk management.

I didn't even bother to prune my Sara's Galapagos, because it's a bush monster. I'd be at it for hours! And besides, with the fruits being small I don't think it's all that bad having a bunch more. The plant does drink water like there's no tomorrow. It consumes water faster than my Black Krim and Russian Oxheart tomato plants.

I'm in a northern climate (near NYC metro area) so I am luckily not in a blight prone zone. I'm not all that worried about there being not enough air circulation around the leaves. But who knows... this is my second year growing so I might find myself eating my words.