[matt80]

Hi all,
Some of my tomato plants seem to have gone off in two different directions near the top, forming a kind of 'Y' shape. I know youre meant to keep it to one main stalk, is this a problem? Is it likely to be because I didn't pinch out the side shoot(s) in time?

[agapanthus]

This often happens....you can take one off or leave them both on. I would leave it on (should get more flowers this way), but remember to give that particular plant a wee bit more feed

[senrab_nhoj]

I'd like to hijack this thread...

Folks over at the weekend and Mum's a tad green fingered so I asked her to pot on some tomatoes to grow in our just built conservatory

A couple of them were Marmade variety and she potted on two that had two or three main stems from the ground up.. looking healthy etc and pretty much equal growth

.. do I leave all the stems on or should I remove and keep one main stem... am leaning towards leaving on unless weight of response tells me otherwise....

[gobs]

I have Tigerella doing that at the mo and I'm leaving them to it. Both bushes, I will thin foliage is too dense, but not training them.

[matt80]

So when I stop them (when they have 4 trusses), presumably I will need to stop both shoots?

Can someone also expand on how and how far I should go about getting rid of foilage? There's rather a lot at the moment - but I don't know which leaves to get rid of, what technique to use and how many to do?!

[Trillium]

Don't know how the others do it, but I just let the plants keep making all the trusses and toms they like.
As for taking off leaves, start at the bottom and pinch close to the stalks or stems, careful not to take off flowering buds. I'm not sure how far up at any one time you can go, so I do about half the plant, let it recover for a few weeks, then take off an equal amount again, always leaving some at the top.

[vegmandan]

Why would you want to take the leaves off ?

These are the things that provide the energy to make the tomatoes grow surely. :shock:

OK once you have mature toms on the plant then remove old dead leaves to  improve air flow and reduce shade, but to remove good leaves when the plant is still growing seems daft to me.
I may be completely wrong though :shock:

[Big Jen]

I always remove the bottom 2 or 3 leaves to make it easier to water them without splashing the leaves. Later in the season I remove a few leaves to let the sun at the fruit to ripen it. Plants need leaves to provide energy why cut them off :?:
BJ

[Aunt Sally]

I agree with vegmandan and Big Jen.  That's what I've always done with good success.

[Gardeningguru]

Why would you want to take the leaves off ?

These are the things that provide the energy to make the tomatoes grow surely. :shock:

OK once you have mature toms on the plant then remove old dead leaves to  improve air flow and reduce shade, but to remove good leaves when the plant is still growing seems daft to me.
I may be completely wrong though :shock:

I always understood it was considered wasted energy having too many leaves and letting it producing foilage rather than the plant concentrating on producing the flower buds etc at the business end.  

But each to their own, and whatever produces results is the best way.

[Aunt Sally]

The leaves are the factory of any plant. The fruits won't grow themselves they need the building blocks produced by the leaves.

They leaves do tend to send their products downwards so removing old leaves below the fruit trusses when they are fully developed gets light in to ripen them. and leaving a couple of leaves above the top truss feeds and grows them.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/vegetables/crops/tomato.asp

[Johnny Norfolk]

If they have 'split' one of them will be the main stem and one will be the sucker. Try and see if one comes between a leaf joint and the main stem , this will be sucker and should be removed. They are easy to miss in the early stages, i have just pulled about 4 off my toms that i should have spotted and missed. its never to late to remove them.

[DD.]

Tomatoes often do this at the growing point, we are not talking of a leaf axis here.

Snap either off & stick it in a pot to make another plant!

[GreenOwl]

I'm with Aggie, I leave 'em be and treat as 2 plants, ie stop both when they're at the height you want.  I don't bother about number of trusses I just stop them when they reach the top of the supports.

I think I read that the Victorians used to allow one side shoot to grow out from the bottom of the plant to increase the crop so Senrab I'd leave them be as well.

I usually only remove foliage if its looking a bit manky.

Anyway thats what I do.

[gobs]

Just about the particular variety, I've never yet felt the need for stopping Marmande, only grown it 3 seasons, mind.