It depends on how much space you have or how close the plants are. If you want a compact plant, prune the suckers. Also prune the suckers if the plants are close together. If you have lots of space, then let the suckers be. I prune suckers because I have limited space and my plants are close together. If your plants are not close together, then leave the suckers alone.

Yes I have plenty of space. Thank you!

Great! Let them be and don't cut off your future tomatoes .....

You said that yours are indeterminates, but just in case anyone is growing compacts or dwarfs, it is advised not to prune those at all (except any leaves that may be touching the ground, or those that get yellowed).

Linda

I think what you need to remember is that the whole purpose in life of a tomato plant is to create tomatoes (with seeds). If it wants to make suckers, those suckers won't interfere with doing so. The decision about pruning is, however, one of space management, and support management.

Yes I was confused on why people prune them as I was thinking that in nature pruning doesn't necessarily happen. But I can see the point about space so that makes sense. I've also read some people say the fruits will be smaller if you DON'T prune. Not sure if that's true or not, but maybe it doesn't really matter? Thank you!

It's possible that fruits will be smaller if you don't prune, but I never worry about fruit size. I'm more concerned with total pounds than inches. I think the tomato plants certainly don't worry about fruit sizes either. It's the number of seeds that are produced, rather than whether a slice will fit on a hamburger bun.

Pruning is to maximize yield per ground space to make a summary. If you have a greenhouse or a small garden, you prune, since you want to maximize what you can do with that space. There's also the foliar disease vs sunscald choice as well.

I don't think pruning will necessarily increase yield. The plants self-regulate on that. That is, if many fruits are on the vine, and nutrients or root-space is limited, the plant will simply slow down flowering and producing foliage. Again, it's all about producing the most seeds. If the plant senses that it risks fruit maturation by producing more fruit and foliage, it'll stop producing more fruit and foliage. Though to the extent that the plants starts to self-shade, it might interfere with productivity.

Certainly pruning to keep foliage from drooping onto the ground is important, to avoid picking up fungal infections.

Actually I was wondering about foliage touching the ground. Several of the lower branches are resting on the ground. Guess I should prune them off - thanks!

Do you have a cage, trellis or stake to support your tomatoes? Generally, it's not good to allow foliage to touch the ground due to transfer of disease. You can support the branches in a cage, trellis, or stake to put them off the ground. Then you there would be no need to prune them off. If you cannot get those branches off the ground, I would remove them. (Most times, instead of removing the entire branch, you can just remove the leaves touching the ground.)

They are in containers with a large cage. I probably should have pruned the bottom branches when I transplanted them, but since I didn't they are now quite thick. I'm a bit afraid to prune them now as I'm worried I may somehow damage the plant? Those branches have the diameter of my index finger. Am thinking I will let it be this year and do better next, but let me know if you think it's vitally important to prune them.

C.S. Google "Missouri Method" of suckering. "They" (random people on the internet, so it must be true) recommend using it when the diameter of the sucker is > the width of a pencil.

Edit: I don't bother with this, no matter how thick the stems are I break/cut them off anyway. I do not have heavy disease pressure in my area, so YMMV.

I didn't really answer if I believed it was vitally important. I don't believe it is,. If they were my plants (and they aren't, so do whatever you want, you can't really screw this decision up) I would 'top' the suckers on beefsteak-type varieties and let the suckers go "wild" for cherry/plum tomatoes.

Last year I last year I ended the season with 6 stems on each of my cherry tomato plants. I originally removed all the low suckers, then let them grow out halfway through the season (I changed my mind in the middle of the year). Still had good production in terms of volume and quality. My cherokee purple became a giant mess of vines, with flower branches sending out leaves, which themselves had suckers, etc., etc.. Good production (quantity, about 20) with several 12oz fruits. Most were 8oz or so.

Like Daninthedirt said, it doesn't really "matter", I hope that anecdote/testimonial (the most reliable source of truth, lol) puts your mind at ease.

If your plants are widely spaced (3-4 feet apart) and you have big 8 foot tall 3 foot wide tomato cages, pruning suckers doesn't make sense. You can let that plant get as big as it wants as quickly as it wants, and produce as much as it possibly can. But if you're like me and want to fit 20 different varieties into a modest backyard garden, and are using stakes instead of cages, you have to manage their growth to keep them under control. Every sucker is a new growing stem, and every growing stem will produce more suckers at every leaf node. Left unchecked they can get out of control pretty quickly when conditions are right. All those extra stems and leaves can get very dense and heavy. Very dense, overcrowded growth reduces airflow and makes them more susceptible to disease. It also allows diseased plants to more easily infect healthy plants. And if the plant gets too heavy it can break a stake or cause a stake or cage to topple over. Suckering is just the easiest way to manage the growth of a plant and let it get as big or small as you want it to. Some people like to keep them to a single stem, never allowing any suckers go grow. Personally I am planning to let 2 or 3 main stems grow on most plants, and later in the season I will probably let them go wild. One main stem leaves too much chance that it flowers during hot spells, fruit doesn't set, and I'm left with a low harvest.

That's all very good to know. Might change how I approach it. Thank you!

I prune (suckers and leaves) to keep the foliage sparse in my disease ridden climate. If I let the foliage get thick and dense, it becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of leaf diseases, due to lack of air flow and not being able to dry out.

Nick & Ed explained it best. I just have to insert my text replacement quote: Unpruned equals unsightly, impenetrable, disease wracked tangle.

Think "tomato tree" at Epcot

Dan, glad you made the distinction between interior and exterior suckers, I left out that valuable info.

I'm presuming an interior sucker is one pointed inward, and an exterior one is one pointed outward. Yes, I suppose if you have crowding problems the former are the ones to remove. Though a branch that comes out of a sucker pointed inward can be strung up to go outward.

The point is, if we have thick plants here in hot, humid, Georgia, they will get sick quick. I don't care if it's suckers, branches, or whatever. If the plant is too dense, it no good, and it gets thinned. I prune whatever is necessary to maximize tomato production and keep plants healthy as long as possible. I don't know what it's like in Texas, but we have a wall of humidity from May to Sept. Our temps hit 100 rarely, but the heat index lives at 110. Frankly, not planning to harvest many, if any tomatoes in July. Have already topped my plants to get all tomatoes ripe in June........then we go on vacation :-)

Well said. But what you're talking about isn't pruning to maximize production. It's pruning to ensure survival. Makes sense.

Just for a FWIW, if a branch is going to become a viable fruit producer, I don't consider it a sucker, it's another stem. To me a sucker is a small sprout that will grow, and not really produce much, unless given a fresh 60 days to do it's thing, flower, fruit, ripen. Almost every branch at some point produces a sucker, and to me they are worthless. In a cooler climates like up north in NY where I grew tomatoes for 20 years, I let them all just grow, and didn't worry about diseases much. Down south it's a different ballgame.

I’m hartily laughing at the whole inside, outside, lateral branch, sucker discussions. On my plants they all add up to the same thing.

I always say what works best for you then stick with it, I prune my suckers but there is some I always miss and after the plants get so big I usually just let them go.

I prune if I feel pruning is needed. It depends a lot on the variety. I definitely prune off all the leaves on the bottom foot of the plant/anything that touches the ground once the plant gets to a decent size.

I don't, however, make it a point to systematically prune off all suckers the way some Internet "experts" advise as a blanket policy.

Many times, I just remove leaves to open up plants that have very dense foliage but leave the suckers alone as long it looks like there will be room for them. Because I trellis, I sometimes end up removing suckers that are going to make the plant difficult to control later in the season, but I try to leave as many as I can on the plant. The suckers always end up producing a lot of fruit, with the exception of the ones that re-sprout on the bottom of the plant after I've pruned off the lowest foliage.

It doesn't have to be dogmatic.