Side Shoots on toms

try looking here

Pruning Tomatoes - Fine Gardening Article

Very helpfull thanks markwcel.........

Hi BW
2 schools of thought: one - prune and tie to a stake. two - plant and leave.

There is an argument raging about 'sever pruning' and you can see the results on UTube where someone chops off all but the top few leaves and the first flower trusses; buries the transplant up to the top leaves.

In the UK you have to be a bit more circumspect, you will not get the weather, sunshine etc so just learn what are the flower trusses and remove the other shoots. Flowers tend to grow from along the stem whereas growth is from the junction of the leaf/stem.

Leaves below the flower trusses are less productive and liable to get disease from the soil so they can also go. Anything else is up to you.

This video may help.

How To Prune Tomatoes

If you are not sure whether its a side shoot or a flower truss let it grow a bit bigger, you don't have to pinch them out when they are minuscule, although it helps not to let them get too big

It looks like you have a side shoot which has got out of control behind the large tomato at the bottom left hand corner. This should have been removed as you now have two stems instead of one. Assuming that photo is of your tomato - remove that big side shoot now. All side shoots growing between the main stem and leaves should be removed. Otherwise you will finish up with a bush.

Or you can maybe just leave it if it's only one and have a two-stemmed plant... you will get trusses on the second stem and it might do more harm than good to rip off a huge branch and leave a wound.

At least - that was what I though. I have a couple of plants outside, one has got two stems as I didn't notice a side shoot until it already had flowers on it (!!) and decided to leave it, the other has only one stem but I did take off another (!!) large and flowering side shoot that suddenly appeared when I was looking the other way... Well now, the first plant is bigger and has more fruit on it than the second, and they've otherwise been treated the same, so make of that what you will.

Anyway, I reckon if you've already got a massive sideshoot with flowers on it, it's possibly worth keeping, just make sure it's got support... (I'll be laughing on the other side of my face when the two-stemmed plant falls over and all the fruit stay green, won't I? But I'm sure I read somewhere that other people do this...)

Meanwhile, FWIW, the large stem I took off Plant B I stuck in a pot, just in case, and it has rooted without losing any of the flowers. yay! I love tomatoes - even I can't seem to kill them, or even set them back, they just want to grow! My mum calls them "good, honest plants" and she's right

"Or you can maybe just leave it if it's only one and have a two-stemmed plant... you will get trusses on the second stem and it might do more harm than good to rip off a huge branch and leave a wound."

I agree, but I would also stop / pinch out the secondary shoot so that it only carries fruit for the flower trusses already formed.

Good thinking, thanks for that - will pinch out number 2 stem today!