Tomatoes and suckers.

Tomato: a sucker

a cut sucker

a cut sucker

a cut sucker

I thought this extract is worth to read because it explains sucker deeper.

As a tomato grows, side shoots, or suckers, form in the crotches, or axils, between the leaves and the main stem. If left alone, these suckers will grow just like the main stem, producing flowers and fruit.

Suckers appear sequentially, from the bottom of the plant up. The farther up on the plant a sucker develops, the weaker it is, because the sugar concentration gets lower as you move up the plant. On the other hand, side stems arising from below the first flower cluster, although stronger, compromise the strength of the main stem. For a multi-stemmed plant, your aim is to have all stems roughly the same size, although the main stem should always be stronger, because it has to feed the entire plant for the next five or six months. Here's how I achieve this. click for more;   Pruning Tomatoes
 

We did prune suckers early on. But once flowers start to appear, gardeners like me, will pay the cute flowers and little fruits that appear later more attention. We tend to forget about suckers for a while, then the plants get very bushy. A little gust of wind and a heavy downpour will bring the branches down. By then we are back to our senses and start to look for suckers that have to go.

bangchik

Putrajaya Malaysia