Kiee

I'd tell my neighbor to keep her hands off my tomato plants!

What variety of tomato plant is it? Determinate tomatoes will produce poorly if their suckers are removed -- it does remove the branches where the fruits develop and the plant doesn't grow new ones.

If it's an indeterminate plant, it will keep growing and produce other suckers, which will produce fruit. You won't have lost much in that case. Some people remove the suckers from indeterminate plants to save space, while others let them all grow. So you have a choice about them.

Oh boy!............

And when you next see your neighbor please tell her that the real name of suckers are lateral branches and that they are perfectly productive of blossoms and fruit and that "suckers" don't "suck" energy from the plant. ( smile)

Carolyn

She didn't even ask first, just started snapping off branches??? Shades of the story of the Organic Magic guru!!

I'd have been slapping her hands and telling her to get off my porch.

Dave

Kiee, take this message to your neighbor. Tell her that an old tomato grower called ContainerTed said that she should

"KEEP HER MISINFORMED MEATHOOKS OFF THE PLANTS!!!"

I'd probably go over to her house and cut up rose bush or something on the premise of pruning.

Ted

Suckers do not starve the plants of energy; they make the plants bushier and produce more (but smaller) fruit.

There are different ways of growing and supporting tomatoes. And it's a cultural thing: how you were raised, like whether you say "ketchup" or "catsup," or whether you use a PC or a Mac, or which way the toilet paper rolls.

Some people (my maternal grandfather, for instance) believe in planting indeterminate tomatoes closely and growing each plant on a single stake; many who like this method will prune off all the suckers, leaving only the main stem. You don't get many fruit, but theoretically they're larger.

I'm a short person, and nearsighted to boot! My original motivation for allowing side branches was the desire for a shorter plant, so I'd be able to reach more of it (pick fruit, find hornworms, etc.).

Others prune the plant to a few branches and support it different ways.

Many don't prune at all; these folks often grow the plant in a "tomato cage" (wire box thing). They save both the time needed to prune and the time needed to tie up the branches. However, they may end up with a tomato jungle where it's difficult to find the fruit -- or they may suddenly realize they created a safe hiding place for hornworms which have grown fat eating all the ripening fruit!

Like all plants, tomatoes receive their energy from their foliage. And leaves help shade the fruit, so they don't get sunburned in hot, sunny weather.

Your neighbor was trying to help. She was probably raised (as I was) to believe that tomatoes are only supposed to have one stem.

Your tomato plants desperately want to have suckers, and will soon begin to produce more in some of the same places where your neighbor removed the original suckers.

Hmmm, I think I had better clear this up before it gets out of hand:I am not angry with my neighbor, we have lived here for a few years and we are friends. We have discussed this issue for 2 years now. She prunes, I do not. It was only when the plants grew higher and higher, without any buds or blooms that I began to worry?

So, I though to ask you folks for the true answer. And, I have 7 so far:

Anne, The type is indeterminate.

Sprtsguy76, "You said it".

Carolyn137, Strange, her anme is Carolyn also. True, True.

Digdirt, I asked, she convenced me.
Containered, "To prune or not to prune"?
Catman, "I know". Yieks, running out of space!
Missingtheobvious, these are in PVC frames.

Gardening with love, Kiee Pics will follow...

8 now ;)
Cattle rustling used to not be tolerated. I would consider folks messing with my 'maters an even more intolerable offense!
BTW, cattle theft is increasing so watch out for like minded folks!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/us/25rustling.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Lost cows?

Here are shots of what I am talking about:

The height...

The bottom few feet...

Top few feet...

Hope you can make it all out.

Gardening with love, Kiee

The bottom pic shows blooms galore. Was this consensual pruning or a neighbor that needs to learn boundaries?

kiee

Since they're indeterminates, they'll be okay.

If you want to be "the decider" about your tomato plants, tell your friend that next year you're going to do an experiment and leave most of the laterals/suckers on the plants since she removed them this year. And ask her not to prune them!

You can compare earliness and production between the two ways of treating the plants. Keep records!

Don't prune unless you're trying to get one or two larger fruit out of the plant. Otherwise, give the plant what it needs to continue. I think people who prune are lazy and are demanding that the plant should ask for less nutrients and water, not asking what the plant needs to be its best.

JMHO

Check out the Bucket Farm thread to see how plants that get what they want do.

Ted

Kiee,

I don't want to get between you, your neighbor and other gardeners who are posting in this thread with regard to the pros and cons of pruning.

Your plants look very healthy.

If I were growing tomatoes in containers like yours and supported as you are supporting them, I would prune many of the lateral shoots too. You don't want total growth to inhibit airflow through the plants. The foliage should dry out as quickly as possible after rains and heavy dew. Your plants look great now. Whatever pruning was done seems to have been done thoughtfully or at least hasn't resulted in stripped down bare bones plants.

As to your question regarding "fruit shoots." The main stem and each of the lateral shoots that you allow to remain will produce flower clusters.

The main shoot generally will put out its first inflorescence (flower buds) above the 5th or 7th internode (leaf emergence) above the ground. Then with an indeterminate, the main shoot will put out another inflorescence above every 3rd internode. When I say that, I mean it will put out a flower cluster from the stem inbetween the 3rd leaf crotch and the 4th leaf crotch above the last flower cluster thereafter. The lateral shoots will do the same thing.

Personally, I would continue to prune some of the lateral shoots just to keep the total growth under control because of the system of support you are using. Good job! Looks great!

Pennyrile, At last an answer I can deal with. Now, all I have to do is to go out and count nodes to see how well my plants are doing? Thanks for your input into the age old question.

Gardening with love, Kiee

containerted: All due respect, but demanding that a plant does what you want and need it to is what gardening is. If we didn't force a plant to adapt tomatoes would still only be growing in South America. There are plenty of reasons people prune and it isn't laziness, it is preference, and works in certain situations where plants are spaced closer. I absolutely cannot wrap my head around your statement.

Kiee: Your plants really do look happy and healthy.

Kiee- what your neighbour says is perfectly true, on Indeterminate plants the best plants and fruit are obtained by snapping off all the suckers-every last one of them, as they go up the stem, suckers from the base and side shoots on the main stem, all the fruit and flowers will form on the main stem at intervals of around a foot apart or less,

This practice is normally carried out over the whole of european countries with great success, despite what many missinformed American cousins think, who persist in producing wads and reams of information to the contrary, and some of them appear to seriously believe what they read, all indeterminate tomato plants perform best from single stem cordon culture, and give pounds more fruit in a given area for each plant-rather than have a straggly very untidy bushed out plant with a yard wide spread of leaves or more.-your neighbour appears to have some experiance in the matter and clearly knows what she is talking about-when it comes to Indeterminate plants.

All of England and the UK, Holland, Spain, Portugal,Belgium,Germany, and other European commercial growers and hobby growers, some with vast acerages of tomatoes mostly under glass or plastic use this method and have done so since easily the early twenties or thirties to present day, some of your doubting thomases in the USA keep quoting various University studies and plant trials etc,all of which swear that plants with suckers left on produce more tomatoes and bigger and better crops, several million Europeans would not agree with them.

I hate debates about whether or not to prune (I am not diehard either way, have done both depending), and I can't say 'well we do it this way in Europe so it must be right' is a very good argument. I can only speak from gardening in the UK, but the difference in technique might have a lot to do with the climate. For one, there is no need for foliage to protect from sunscald. I barely managed ripe tomatoes on plants I pruned and topped off last summer in London but a southern gardener (and many northern gardeners) in the US have a much longer season and a LOT more heat than anywhere in the UK. That means enough time for a tomato plant to be productive on lateral branches.

Growing tomatoes in glass houses and hoop houses is tremendously different than growing tomatoes in backyards and open fields especially with regard to plant spacing, plant support and disease control. Plant growth habit also comes into play.

Mickey's post doesn't take into account the many applicable variables.

Thank you Megpi. There are reasons for both. I am doing light to moderate pruning on a container cherry this year, almost no pruning on my canning tomatoes, but will be pruning my slicers pretty heavily. The reason for that is that I always want to grow a wide variety, but don't have tons of space, and don't need tons of slicers. This way I can get the varieties and stay within my available space. It really has to do with each gardener's needs, and I don't see why people get so excited about how others choose to prune.