Suckering tomatoes

clkeiper · June 19, 2013

All of my first planting of tomatoes got zapped by frost and now all the side shoots AKA suckers have popped and have created a beautiful bush of tomatoes...all 70 plants. What do I do with them now? leave the nicest sucker, leave 2 suckers, the bottom ones, or top ones...I have never had this happen so I am a t a bit of quandary as to what to do. Please tell me. They are all hybrids, too. No heirlooms in this row.

Mark0820 · June 19, 2013

I'm sure you will get a wide range of comments so I will just post what works for me. If the plants are determinate, I wouldn't do anything to them.

However, if they are indeterminate, I usually remove any suckers below the first fruit set or blossoms. Anything above the first fruit set or blossoms, I just let them continue to grow.

clkeiper · June 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark0820

I'm sure you will get a wide range of comments so I will just post what works for me. If the plants are determinate, I wouldn't do anything to them.

However, if they are indeterminate, I usually remove any suckers below the first fruit set or blossoms. Anything above the first fruit set or blossoms, I just let them continue to grow.

These are semi inderterminate and indeterminates. big beef, celebrity, ultra pink, goliath. I have about 4 -6 nice suckers all the same size forming a bush. I am thinking I should start pulling the suckers off soon as they are the size of a regular tomato stem, maybe 1/2" in diameter for each sucker. I forget to say there is no central stem. the tip froze out.

Mark0820 · June 19, 2013

Are there any blossoms or fruit on the plants?

b54red · June 19, 2013

Just pick the two or three suckers that seem to be more firmly attached to the stem and pull off the rest. I did this with several of my plants earlier this year and they have done fine. The reason you want to see which ones seem to be the best attached is sometimes suckers are very weakly attached to the stem and as they get larger they will break off. You also want to tie them up so they are supported.

Bill

clkeiper · June 19, 2013

No blossoms or fruit yet., Mark.

b54red, they are in cages, so they are supported, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to do the wrong thing with them before I started. thanks

clkeiper · June 19, 2013

oops! wrong button

Virtex · June 19, 2013

I topped 2 plants that were wilting this year, they were 2 feet tall when I did it. They both came back just fine. I am pretty sure if you do nothing they will do fine and if you do something they will do just as good. I have learned that tomatoes are easy to grow, you can cut them back to nothing and they will just come back.

Good luck,

- Virtex

Mark0820 · June 19, 2013

Just to clarify, my comments in post #8 are relative to how tall the main stem was before it was damaged.

For example, if the main stem was only 6 inches tall, then obviously you need to keep at least one sucker below 6 inches. The shorter the main stem, the fewer the suckers I would be inclined to keep. Then as those stems grew, I would just let the suckers off of those new stems grow.

clkeiper · June 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark0820

Just to clarify, my comments in post #8 are relative to how tall the main stem was before it was damaged.

For example, if the main stem was only 6 inches tall, then obviously you need to keep at least one sucker below 6 inches. The shorter the main stem, the fewer the suckers I would be inclined to keep. Then as those stems grew, I would just let the suckers off of those new stems grow.

The plants were put out the same week the freeze came. They were maybe 8-12" tall. just beautiful! Then we had two freezes at the end of May and these survived, but the center was frozen out and now they are about 15-18" tall and bushy. The top one or two suckers are on stems that are very thin, but the bottom suckers (much closer to the ground) are really nice, but I just have never had 70ish plants to take my chances on getting a crop off from, that look like this.

Tomorrow I will just start thinning to see what happens, no matter how I go about it.

Mark0820 · June 20, 2013

If the main stem is thin, you definitely want to keep the sturdy suckers at the bottom of the plant. Otherwise the stem probably won't support the plant.

I probably wouldn't prune the Celebrities or any other semi-determinate plants you have, but that is just me.

dice · June 21, 2013

2 and 3 stem examples, in pictures (some people do this on
purpose, without the frost to force it):

http://www.tomodori.com/3culture/taill_sur_2-tiges.htm

(I did not have the patience to paste the whole thing into
Google Translate, and when I pasted the URL, it did nothing.)

tlintx · June 21, 2013

Good site, I'm following it (well, as much as I follow anything) for my raised beds for Fall. I want my garden to look as neat and productive as b54red's!

I don't know in Firefox or IE, but in Chrome, it offers at the top to translate for you when you visit a page not in your native language.

And you can always google "Tomodori" and click the "translate this page" link under the result title.

dice · June 22, 2013

That seemed to work (Firefox). First I tried having Google translate
the tomodori.com front page. I had to tell Firefox to allow a redirection
(I have Firefox preferences set so that Firefox pops up a box warning about redirections, and I have to click on it to allow the particular
redirection), then the translation took a couple of minutes, but I
could read the Tomodori front page and links from it in English.

Then I tried having Google search for "tomodori" *and* a quoted
phrase from the pruning page (in French). Google returned the page
as a result, and I selected "translate". Again, I had to allow the
redirection, and I am "still waiting" on the translation. (I may try that
again. I may have got the timing off some way and hung something
in the Google Translate back end.)

Ah, here we go, the Tomodori pruning page automatically translated
from French to English:
http://translate.google.com/translat...Dctr:countryFR

(Seems like it loses a little something in translation, but there is still
enough there to be sure that you are understanding the pictures.)

clkeiper · June 24, 2013

Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate the thoughts and perspectives on the problem. I hated to start this and then think "I should have asked".

I decided to leave 2- 3 leaders on each plant as I start to thin the suckers. Whatever it takes to balance the plant in the cage so it doesn't fall over once it starts to grow over the top of the cage.
Hopefully this will be the only year I have to worry about this problem.

June 19, 2013	#1
clkeiper Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: ohio Posts: 4,350	Suckering tomatoes All of my first planting of tomatoes got zapped by frost and now all the side shoots AKA suckers have popped and have created a beautiful bush of tomatoes...all 70 plants. What do I do with them now? leave the nicest sucker, leave 2 suckers, the bottom ones, or top ones...I have never had this happen so I am a t a bit of quandary as to what to do. Please tell me. They are all hybrids, too. No heirlooms in this row. __________________ carolyn k Last edited by clkeiper; June 19, 2013 at 09:46 PM.

June 19, 2013	#6
clkeiper Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: ohio Posts: 4,350	No blossoms or fruit yet., Mark. b54red, they are in cages, so they are supported, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to do the wrong thing with them before I started. thanks __________________ carolyn k

June 19, 2013	#7
clkeiper Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: ohio Posts: 4,350	oops! wrong button __________________ carolyn k

June 21, 2013	#12
dice Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: PNW Posts: 4,743	2 and 3 stem examples, in pictures (some people do this on purpose, without the frost to force it): http://www.tomodori.com/3culture/taill_sur_2-tiges.htm (I did not have the patience to paste the whole thing into Google Translate, and when I pasted the URL, it did nothing.) __________________ -- alias

June 22, 2013	#14
dice Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: PNW Posts: 4,743	That seemed to work (Firefox). First I tried having Google translate the tomodori.com front page. I had to tell Firefox to allow a redirection (I have Firefox preferences set so that Firefox pops up a box warning about redirections, and I have to click on it to allow the particular redirection), then the translation took a couple of minutes, but I could read the Tomodori front page and links from it in English. Then I tried having Google search for "tomodori" and a quoted phrase from the pruning page (in French). Google returned the page as a result, and I selected "translate". Again, I had to allow the redirection, and I am "still waiting" on the translation. (I may try that again. I may have got the timing off some way and hung something in the Google Translate back end.) Ah, here we go, the Tomodori pruning page automatically translated from French to English: http://translate.google.com/translat...Dctr:countryFR (Seems like it loses a little something in translation, but there is still enough there to be sure that you are understanding the pictures.) __________________ -- alias Last edited by dice; June 22, 2013 at 09:25 PM. Reason: sp

June 19, 2013	#2
Mark0820 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cincinnati Posts: 907	I'm sure you will get a wide range of comments so I will just post what works for me. If the plants are determinate, I wouldn't do anything to them. However, if they are indeterminate, I usually remove any suckers below the first fruit set or blossoms. Anything above the first fruit set or blossoms, I just let them continue to grow.

June 19, 2013	#5
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	Just pick the two or three suckers that seem to be more firmly attached to the stem and pull off the rest. I did this with several of my plants earlier this year and they have done fine. The reason you want to see which ones seem to be the best attached is sometimes suckers are very weakly attached to the stem and as they get larger they will break off. You also want to tie them up so they are supported. Bill

June 19, 2013	#8
Virtex Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: California Posts: 121	I topped 2 plants that were wilting this year, they were 2 feet tall when I did it. They both came back just fine. I am pretty sure if you do nothing they will do fine and if you do something they will do just as good. I have learned that tomatoes are easy to grow, you can cut them back to nothing and they will just come back. Good luck, - Virtex

June 20, 2013	#11
Mark0820 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cincinnati Posts: 907	If the main stem is thin, you definitely want to keep the sturdy suckers at the bottom of the plant. Otherwise the stem probably won't support the plant. I probably wouldn't prune the Celebrities or any other semi-determinate plants you have, but that is just me.

June 21, 2013	#13
tlintx Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: SeTx Posts: 881	Good site, I'm following it (well, as much as I follow anything) for my raised beds for Fall. I want my garden to look as neat and productive as b54red's! I don't know in Firefox or IE, but in Chrome, it offers at the top to translate for you when you visit a page not in your native language. And you can always google "Tomodori" and click the "translate this page" link under the result title.

June 24, 2013	#15
clkeiper Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: ohio Posts: 4,350	Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate the thoughts and perspectives on the problem. I hated to start this and then think "I should have asked". I decided to leave 2- 3 leaders on each plant as I start to thin the suckers. Whatever it takes to balance the plant in the cage so it doesn't fall over once it starts to grow over the top of the cage. Hopefully this will be the only year I have to worry about this problem. __________________ carolyn k