How To Prune Tomato Plants

Vegetable farmers have debated for years about whether they should prune tomato plants. Many gardeners are so careful about their pruning tomatoes, while others could care less. So who is right?

Generally pruning your tomato plants promotes the health of the plants and the quality of the fruit they produce. I have had prosperous tomato crops when I pruned it, and also when I didn’t prune my tomato plants.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of pruning the tomato plants:

Some Tomato Plants Pruning Advantages:

• Cut off the “suckers” from a tomato plant will support the plant to focus its strength on the growing fruit instead of the leaves, producing better, healthier fruit. This is a method clearly called “Pinching off”. It is arranged by pinching off the short branches that form in the like alphabetic “Y” among the central stalk and a branch.

• Pruning each branching off from the base of the tomato plant that is reaching the ground serves to ward off diseases and especially insects, such as blights and wilts. Just trim the one or two branches, with sharp garden scissors or shears, which are touching the soil directly near the stem. Be cautious not to clip into the main stem when doing this task!

• Pruning the tomato plant also makes a more elegant, less cluttered looking tomato plant.

Some Tomato Plant Pruning Disadvantages:

• If you reside in a very hot climate, a tomato plant pruning could hinder production. If Having the extra leaves on the plant will better shelter the fruit from direct sunshine blocking sunscald on the fruit. Pruning can expose the tomatoes plant's fruits to the hot sun.
• Pruning tomato plants should start through the early stages of growth – when the plant stands a height of approximately 12 to 18 inches. Waiting to prune later on in the development could make it to go into shock, and may reduce production (These can happen if you prune a lot of plant branches at one time).

• For pruning to be victorious you need regularly keep up with the growth of the tomato plant and cut suckers when they are poor. The suckers are very gently pinched when they have just begun to sprout.

• If you have never pruned your plants ever, try sampling with one plant and examine if there are any production variations among the pruned and unpruned plants. You might be amazed by what you discover!