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Should I be pruning the sucker stem that grows between the larger stem and the stalk of my tomato plants?
Last Updated: January 08, 2008
Whether to pinch the suckers in the leaf axils of your tomato plants depends on how the plants are being trained. If you are staking your tomato plants and want to train them to a single stem that you can tie to a support, then you want to pinch out the sucker because this will reduce the plant load. If you are growing your tomatoes in cages or allowing them to sprawl on the ground, there is no need nor advantage to removing these suckers. The extra foliage can provide protection to the fruit and help prevent sunscald.
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