Tommysgarden- the way to start pruning tomatoes properly- is to wait whilst the plants are about a foot high or more, then look for the first side shoots beginning to develop from the base of the stem and up the stem of the plant to the top, with a finger and thumb nail- nip out these shoots-all of them up the stem, then leave for a week and check the once a week after that and do the same if nessesary, the main thing you have to watch out for at about the third week after planting- right at the very tip of the plant there is often a desire by the plant to fork into two seperate branches-look very carefully at this and choose only the one stem that has a little truss of flowers growing on it , and nip out the other one,this is important to choose the right one, as this is the crown stem and needs to be retained- and will go on to produce lots of trusses all the way up the stem to eight foot or more.

This of course only applies to indeterminate varieties, not bush or short growing dwarves etc.

Some of you plants will go on to produce a crop so heavy in trusses and fruit that even if properly staked with large seven foot stakes the the heavy crop will tend to try to slide back down the stem if not secured properly with ties, you may even have to tie up more trusses as you go on if the crop becomes too heavy, the tomatoes produced by this method are usually so heavy a crop that you will have an excess amount to spare and have to give a lot of them away to friends and relatives by the end f the season because you won't be able to cope with them

It is generally thought that should you want more than one stem, the lower on the plant the more productive. This makes easy sense since that branch will have more time.

Yield record holder Charles Wilber suggests, leaving the lowest six, allowing them to split once and the next two, allowing them to split three times. He grew and was prepared to grow very lrg. plants in welded wire mesh cages with meticulous training to those cages. His suggestion was for suckers that were to be removed, be smaller rather than larger (one inch is quoted) but by the time he pruned anything, the plants were of substantial size.

Seems like a lot of plant for my 3' spacing fl. weave so I'll be doing a variation of this this yr.

I like to prune suckers the summer before I plant in garden. That way, I don't have to get out in the hot summer sunshine as much when they are planted.

I can always use the suckers to grow next year's crop.

And I don't sucker my tomatoes at all unless I want another plant of the same variety. But then I'm not interested in the size of the tomatoes but rather their production.

The FAQ response does not take a lot of things into consideration. If you plant your plants 20" apart in rows 28" apart as I do removing the suckers isn't even an option, it's a necessity. And yields per square foot are without a doubt going to be higher. Your tomatoes will also ripen weeks earlier. Mine are starting to ripen now.

I don't call it pruning because in most instances a simple bending to one side and the suckers will snap off. But do it as soon as possible and then at least twice a week thereafter. Otherwise the suckers will be too large and a waste if plant growth to remove them. They will grow a few inches within a week. I started thousands of plants this year alone just from the suckers; some I've already planted or I'll plant for a later crop but most I've sold or will sell. Rooting the suckers is a qiuck way to turn 4 plants into 20 in a about 2 weeks time.

Once you remove the suckers more may grow from the same node so watch for regrowth and always watch for new suckers that originate just at or below the soil surface. They are easily missed and the least desirable location for a branch to start. I occasionally notice a few a a big bulge in the plastic mulch as they try to grow under it.

The sucker just below the blossom cluster grows fastest and it will obscure, shade, delay development of and even deform the fruit in that cluster so it's a good idea to keep those snapped out even if you allow a few others to develop into fruiting branches.

Since many heirloom varieties produce so incredibly poorly you may want to allow 2-4 suckers to remain just to increase your yield odds. Many heirloom varieties will actually "fork" into two or more stems. If you remove one you will need to prune or pinch one stem.

"Once you remove the suckers more may grow from the same node so watch for regrowth and always watch for new suckers that originate just at or below the soil surface. They are easily missed and the least desirable location for a branch to start."

Great advice. This is my first year pruning and I noticed that there were suckers coming out from where I already pruned the suckers!

It is true-that you often get new suckers or side shoots coming out again in places where you have already nipped them out,especialy from the very base of the stem- these are the worst ones, and you have to really watch them closely- at least once a week, otherwise if you miss any you suddenly find that you have 3 foot suckers appearing behind the tomato plants they are sneaky little devils- and take all the growing strength out of the main stem and slow it down a lot, you can always tell suspect plants because they often suddenly stop growing and are five or six inches shorter than their neighbors -so if you search around the back of the plants there is nine times out of ten a three foot sucker growing there, as soon as you remove it the plants start to grow again as normal.

Usually when you have nipped out the secondry re-grow suckers, they usually dont grow any more after that near the bases of the stem.

Charles wilbur's method of growing is a totaly different approach to the job and has to be set out properly from the start to achieve those kinds of results-especialy the deep ground composting etc, as well as the high trellises.