Debate: Should you prune tomato suckers or let them grow wild?

I always snipped every sucker off my tomatoes for bigger fruit, but last season I let half my plants go full bush and ended up with way more total tomatoes even though they were smaller, so which method actually works better for a small backyard patch like mine?

3 comments

3 Comments

finleym4319d ago

Oh man that heat wave thing you mentioned really clicked with me, I did the same half-and-half test two years ago and the bushy ones definitely handled the 90 degree stretch way better while the pruned ones got all droopy and dropped some blossoms. The thing that surprised me most was how much less I had to water the unpruned ones because of all that shade on the soil, I actually cut my watering schedule back by about two days a week once they got really bushy. For my little 4x8 raised bed I ended up going full bush on everything after that because I got way more total tomatoes and didn't mind the smaller size for salads and sauces. Yeah the ripening was slower but my season runs pretty long so the extra weeks worked out fine, just had to accept I wasn't gonna win any big tomato contests.

paul28628d ago

Wait, did you notice any difference in how often you had to water or stake the bushy ones? I did the same experiment last year and found the unpruned plants needed way more support but also seemed to handle heat waves better since the extra leaves shaded the soil. The key tradeoff I found was the bushy ones gave me more cherry-sized fruit but they ripened slower at the end of the season, so if you've got a short summer the pruned plants might actually give you more usable tomatoes before frost hits. For a small backyard patch I'd honestly go half and half again just to hedge your bets depending on the weather.

wendyk5628d ago

Three extra weeks of unpruned ripening matches what paul286 found in heat-tolerant basil where shading delayed harvest but doubled leaf yield.