Removing Tomato Laterals

Does removing laterals on tomato plants affect fruit output?

This advice is from one of my favourite Facebook pages – NZ Vege Gardeners. If you’re a keen gardener I highly recommend this fantastic page, everyone is super helpful and friendly, the pictures of peoples gardens are incredibly inspiring and there’s a heap of good advice.

The picture is of my tomato plants, laterals intact, tied to the stake with a tin tie from the top of our home compostable bags.

Should I remove tomato laterals?

When online I keep seeing people asking if they should remove laterals or not… my feeling is that if you remove laterals you can loose fruit. This view is not mine alone, several people on FB have backed this up.

If you want a tall plant with only a few fruit sets removing the laterals is a good idea. If you want a tall plant with a bushy appearance then let nature do its thing, the laterals will shoot off and create a rambling plant with more fruit.

I used to think that removing laterals was the thing to do, however after some experimentation I found that if I leave them on then my plants do a lot better. Now every year I leave the laterals and am very happy with the results.

But don’t take my word for it.

Next season (or this one but it’s getting a bit late to plant tomatoes) plant two tomatoes of the same variety, remove the laterals on one of them and leave them on the other one. Take note in your gardening diary or calendar for next year as to how they both do, take a few pictures too, then you can decide which works best.

Please mention in the comments if you remove or not and what the results are – I’d love to hear. Triona