I've heard that you should strip most of the leaves off tomato plants so that all the energy goes to the fruit

There's apparently a knack to it, does anyone know what it is? I don't want to ruin my plants or risk disease from raw spots on the stems.

I've heard that you should strip most of the leaves off tomato plants so that all the energy goes to the fruit
You don't strip the leaves but you do selectively prune. When you plant your tomato plant pinch off most of the lower branches and plant it deep. This strengthens the plant and allows it to support more. As the plant grows pinch of any branches that start to grow from between where an existing branch and the main stem meet. These are called suckers and weaken the plant. Most people just pinch this off when they first appear. For further details check out this first link.
Reply:The plant needs the leaves. You can thin perhaps 20%, but what is the point, a healthy plant makes fine tomatoes, why would it need extra energy?
Reply:Uhh no. Don't do that. The plants have leaves for a reason, to produce food from the chlorophyll in them.
Reply:fruit are sugar made my the plant.


if there are no leaves to make the sugar on then there will be no fruit.





simple photosynthesis
Reply:You need to thin out some of the leaves so that there is enough sunlight on the toms to ripen them.