What purpose are the leaves on tomato plants?

Question

My tomato plants have tons of huge big leaves, they crowd the plant and i was wondering if anyone knew of what purpose do they have?

Answer 1

Leaves on any plant are basically responsible for photosynthesis that keeps your plant alive and growing.  It wouldn't hurt to prune some of them back.

Answer 2

You need to prune them back. Just have one main stem and trim all the laterals off.Too much green and the tomatoes will not be very big.

Answer 3

Pruning to Shape

As far as pruning is concerned, tomatoes come in two forms, bush (or determinate) and upright (indeterminate or cordon).

Bush varieties do well for cultivation outdoors because they require no pruning for most of the season. Remove any yellow or decaying foliage as soon as possible to avoid the spread of disease.

If your bush tomatoes become too large to support themselves, either trim out a few major branches or add more support canes - the side branches can then be tied into the additional support canes.

Limit the number of trusses of tomatoes to seven or eight by pinching out any surplus ones.

Upright varieties are commonly cultivated in pots, grow-bags, the greenhouse and sometimes outdoors in open soil. When the first fruits begin to form, the plant will produce side-shoots in between the main stem and the leaf stems.

These side shoots (see arrows in diagram on the right) should be removed by pinching them out with the fingers. If allowed to grow they will produce a mass of foliage but few tomatoes. Any shoots which have been overlooked and allowed to grow should also be removed (see X in diagram). If you click the picture on the right, a real picture will appear identifying two side shoots on a real tomato plant.

Lower leaves which show any signs of yellowing should also be removed to avoid the risk of infection.

Answer 4

They have a definite purpose but all of them are not needed or necessary........watch the video

Video How to Prune Tomato Plants

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/25168

Answer 5

Leaves are twofold:  they help with photosynthesis (food for plant) and they shade the vegetables.

It won't hurt to cut back the leaves, especially the ones scarred by leafminers.