By Claire Strader and Lisa Johnson, Extension Dane County XHT1275 Revised: February 8, 2021
Tomatoes are a popular vegetable that many people grow in their home gardens. Pruning tomatoes can create stronger and healthier plants that will grow larger numbers of higher quality tomato fruits later into the growing season.
Which tomatoes should I prune? There are two broad categories of tomatoes: determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain size, then stop growing. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow throughout the growing season. Seed catalogues, seed packets or plant identification stakes will indicate which type of tomato you have. Prune indeterminate tomatoes only.
Why should I prune my tomatoes? Pruning indeterminate tomatoes improves fruit production by removing extra growth that diverts energy away from developing fruits. Removing extra growth redirects energy back to the fruits and reduces fruit shading, both of which will help fruits mature more quickly. Pruning also allows for more airflow within a plant, which reduces humidity and speeds the drying of any remaining leaves. This drier environment is less favorable for fungal and bacterial disease development. Removing the bottommost leaves of a tomato plant serves a similar purpose.
When should I prune my tomatoes? Start pruning in late June or early July when the first tomato flowers are open and easy to identify. Continue with a second and third pruning (as needed) every 10 to 14 days following the first pruning. Stop pruning one to two weeks before your expected first harvest to allow time for tomato plants to produce canopies that will protect fruits from sunscald (pale, injured areas caused by exposure to direct sun).
How should I prune tomato plants? Use the illustrations on this fact sheet as a guide. Identify the main stem of the plant, and locate any suckers. Suckers are branches that form in the leaf axils (the junctions between the true leaves and the main stem). Next, identify the lowest flower / fruit cluster on the plant (i.e., the flower / fruit cluster closest to the ground). Remove every sucker from the plant EXCEPT for the first one below the lowest flower / fruit cluster. That sucker is the strongest one on the plant and should be left to grow and bear fruit as a second stem.
Suckers may be small, especially early in the season, but remove them as soon as possible. Suckers left to grow will produce their own leaves, flowers, fruits, and even additional suckers, which will divert energy from tomato fruits produced on the primary and secondary stems. Also, during the growing season, watch for and remove any root suckers that form at the bases of plants.
Remove suckers by pinching them close to the stem using your thumb and index finger (if the suckers are small), or using scissors or hand pruners. Decontaminate your fingers by routinely washing your hands with soap and water or by using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Decontaminate scissors/pruners (both prior to pruning and between each plant) by treating them for at least 30 seconds with rubbing alcohol. Decontamination will help prevent the spread of disease-causing fungi, bacteria and viruses.
To grow the strongest tomato plant possible, prune side stems below the first fruit cluster. As a tomato plant matures, its lower leaves begin to yellow. Pinch or prune yellowed leaves to prevent disease, improve the tomato plant's appearance, and help the plant keep its energy focused on fruit production.
Every two weeks, prune the lower leaves on the vine, removing about a third of the plant's leaves. Instead of pruning the suckers, you want to prune away non-producing stems and leaves so that the plant can focus on lots of fruit production. Basically, if a branch doesn't have any flowers forming, it needs to go.
If your goal is to maximize the harvest, prune suckers sparingly. A good compromise is to remove all suckers that grow below the first flower cluster. This helps keep the main supporting stem strong, but it doesn't remove upper suckers that will eventually produce flowers and fruit.
The advantage in removing the lower leaves is that the plants energies go into producing fruit rather than a lot of foliage. Also the lower leaves tend to get powdery mildew so it is good to remove them to stop disease spreading.
The lower branches of tomato plants inevitably become diseased first. This is because they have the most exposure to the soil, which is where fungus hides. As a general rule, I will trim at least several branches off both determinate and indeterminate tomatoes, so that the lowest several inches of the stems are bare.
Pruning tomato plants helps direct the plant's energy towards producing fruit rather than producing more foliage. Removing suckers and yellowed leaves also encourages larger fruit, better airflow, fewer diseases, and for container-grown tomatoes, better size.
When you're ready to prune, first inspect the plants and see if any suckers (new branches) are growing close to the main stem. It's better to pinch these off rather than the main stem. After that, look at the main stem and remove any leaves that are growing right beside it.
Determinate tomatoes will grow to their mature size, then stop. These types of tomatoes do not require pruning to thrive. Once they reach full size, they'll start all their fruit around the same time.
Sucker pruning of vining tomatoes can be done throughout the growing season. Start pruning suckers after the first set of flowers appears, which occurs when plants grow 12 to 18 inches tall. Prune out bottom leaves whenever you see them touching the soil.
There is no specific number of leaves to remove from a tomato plant. If you see a stem with no flowers on it, chop it off, it's useless. If you see a stem with three or four trusses you may want to sacrifice one or more of these trusses to ensure that more nutrients are getting to the remaining ones.
Now that you know how to pinch them out and also stop them, you can ensure most of the energy will go towards producing the trusses that in turn produce the fruit. Not doing this will mean you have a fantastically aromatic yet bushy plant that only produces tiny green unripe tomatoes by the end of the season.
Do you want your tomato plant to provide its best results? Then it's crucial to know how many leaves should be cut off the plant. While too many cuts might restrict development and deplete the plant's energy reserves, too few can result in a poor yield.
Once the plant has set fruit which is starting to ripen remove the leaves from below the truss and the ends of the leaves above the truss to allow more light to get to the ripening tomatoes, The lower trusses ripen first so it is the lower leaves which are removed first.
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