Suckers for a sucker

[Kikaida]

So, total newb here.

My plants are doing well...however my Old German has gotten away from me a little. Looks like I have 3 main stems now after last nights trimming. Took off a good amount of descent sized suckers and smaller ones, also removed the low hanging bottom leafs and shaded ones too. Not sure what to expect from this. Its in a 30 gallon dirt-pot (fabric) with tons of room; Fox Farm soil and quality calcium type amendments.

Should I butcher off the other healthy main stems or let it go and keep it in check going forward?

[Stvrob]

It is up to you. 3 stems are fine. So is 1 or 2.

[Irv Wiseguy]

I will pinch off small suckers but if I miss any (and I miss plenty) once I see flowers form I let them grow.

I'm growing Old German for the first time this year and can't wait to taste my first ripe one.

Irv

[Gardeneer]

I would go easy with pruning, not all at once. Heavy pruning may cause stress, I have heard.

[Tracydr]

I don't prune my tomatoes,except for yellow leaves and branches close to the ground.

[carolyn137]

The correct name for a sucker is a lateral branch and they were called suckers b'c it was thought that they sucked the energy out of the plant.

But it's been known for many decades that that's not true, and no, the fruit on lateral branches are not smaller than others.

So I never took off lateral branches since doing so reduces the total fruit yield on a plant.

Carolyn

[Ed of Somis]

In all my studies...I must say "gardeneer" is correct. Back off a bit on your pruning...and try to prune a bit here and there. Most experts feel that heavy pruning can stress a plant (makes sense)...and can be one cause of leaf rolling.

[ginger2778]

A good guideline is never to prune off more than 25% at a time.

[MrBig46]

The smaller the sucker is removed the smaller is stress.
Vladimír

[Worth1]

A friend of mine at work the other day started telling me to prune the suckers.
As many of you guys know I dont use the word sucker as it isn't a sucker.
I told the guy I didn't do it and wouldn't.'
He stared to explain to me how I would get bigger fruit and so forth.
I looked at him and said, do you really want to go into this with me considering how our debates come out.
Remember the focal point and parallax argument?'He looked at me and laughed and said no- I had rather not, it never ends well for me.

I truly love this guy he is one of my best friends at work.

Worth

[Gardeneer]

I prune the lateral because there would be not enough room for them. Let me give you a REAL LIFE example out of my garden:

One of my CP at 16" height has started growing 3 lateral AND the top is already forked.
Now 3 lateral in 3 consecutive nodes, about 6" apart ??? and just within 14" from the ground ??
I think that is too much side growth. The next plant is about 24" away from CP and if I let that one also do the same thing I will end up with a jungle. That can happen if they were 3ft apart.
So I prune . I don't want any side growth up to 2ft off the ground, to keep the air moving.
Production wise, each forked branch has a truss of buds already. That is enough for the plant to support at this stage.

So there are different schools and styles of growing tomatoes.
Whatever work for you , that is just fine.

Gardener.

[Kikaida]

Thanks for the advice everyone...The old German is just taking off and getting huge...Space is a premium so I don't want this guy to get too massive. I've actually got 4 main stems on this one and all are full of flowers. My other varieties have been kept to two main stems while the determinates have just had their lower leaves laying on the ground trimmed off for disease resistance. All in all, everyone is a deep green and aside from some curling of a set of lower leaves on my pineapple (which just got trimmed) everyone looks strong and robust. 1st year growing so we'll see how this goes.

[GreenFarmer]

if they have space you can leave side branches. i grow single stem in greenhouse and i prune them. it is best to prune them smaller and it is true that heavy pruning can stress plants however all commercial greenhouses that i saw do it to maximize and make more consistent fruit.

[Kikaida]

Thanks again for the replies, so very informative! I've pretty much left the ladies alone except for the lower branches and a few lateral branches when I noticed the established main stems. They just seemed to big to chop without the plant being heavily stressed. My Belgian giant has pretty much conformed to one main stem and recently split....Although its big, it looks so "thin" compared to my other bushy plants. Glad I came here and asked!

[Stvrob]

Its all really just a matter if space, both above and below ground. To people with plenty of space, pruning seems to make little sense, but if you want to squeeze in alot of varieties at 18" spacing, your going to need a plan to deal with the sprawl.