In the past, I've usually removed suckers with my fingers, just snapping them off. If I discovered one too big to snap easily, I cut it off with a knife.
This year, I made an effort to remove suckers as early as possible, with the thought that a sucker is not only a useless set of leaves diverting resources, but it is consuming enough to create those new leaves. The limit on how small they could be and still be manually removed seemed to be the thickness and clumsiness of my fingers in reaching between the stalk and the parent leaf. And some varieties are a really tight squeeze. Pennsylvania Red, for example, puts out leaves at a small angle to the stalk, and with a recurving central vein--like a bokchoy.
The method I settled on was to surgically remove the sucker with a knife. I first used my trusty Schrade "Uncle Henry" peanut, which I've carried in my pocket for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, the carbon steel blade turned black in the tobacco sap and was difficult to clean. So I switched to a stainless bladed knife. (If the nickel-silver bolsters get sap on them, they immediately blacken.)
Since I was working with very small suckers near the top of the plant, the tenderness of the stalk was the limiting factor.
The blade edge needs to have some convexity to it, rather than a perfectly straight edge. I carefully place the blade between the stalk and the sucker base--edge down, then simply rotate the handle so that the edge rotates toward the leaf stem. There is a distinct feel like cutting a pat of butter, when the sucker is severed.
The spine of the blade presses against the stalk, so the stalk must be mature enough to endure this. The blade is never drawn in a cutting motion--just rotated. I like to think of it as similar to eye surgery. All the motion of the blade is controlled with my fingertips. Then the severed sucker is lifted away and discarded.
The target sucker.
Knife is placed between the stalk and the sucker.
Knife blade is rotated toward the stem of the parent leaf. Notice that I'm holding the knife with only my fingertips.
With a good, clean rotation, the entire growth bud is excised. It scars over within minutes. On most of them, a secondary sucker does not later appear.
My impression is that, overall, I have needed to tend to suckers less with the knife method, than with breaking them off. The procedure is delicate, so I probably would not trust a paid worker to use the method with sufficient care.
If a knife is used too high up on the plant, against very small parent leaves, it will damage the immature leaf stem.
Bob
This year, I made an effort to remove suckers as early as possible, with the thought that a sucker is not only a useless set of leaves diverting resources, but it is consuming enough to create those new leaves. The limit on how small they could be and still be manually removed seemed to be the thickness and clumsiness of my fingers in reaching between the stalk and the parent leaf. And some varieties are a really tight squeeze. Pennsylvania Red, for example, puts out leaves at a small angle to the stalk, and with a recurving central vein--like a bokchoy.
The method I settled on was to surgically remove the sucker with a knife. I first used my trusty Schrade "Uncle Henry" peanut, which I've carried in my pocket for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, the carbon steel blade turned black in the tobacco sap and was difficult to clean. So I switched to a stainless bladed knife. (If the nickel-silver bolsters get sap on them, they immediately blacken.)
Since I was working with very small suckers near the top of the plant, the tenderness of the stalk was the limiting factor.
The blade edge needs to have some convexity to it, rather than a perfectly straight edge. I carefully place the blade between the stalk and the sucker base--edge down, then simply rotate the handle so that the edge rotates toward the leaf stem. There is a distinct feel like cutting a pat of butter, when the sucker is severed.
The spine of the blade presses against the stalk, so the stalk must be mature enough to endure this. The blade is never drawn in a cutting motion--just rotated. I like to think of it as similar to eye surgery. All the motion of the blade is controlled with my fingertips. Then the severed sucker is lifted away and discarded.
The target sucker.
Knife is placed between the stalk and the sucker.
Knife blade is rotated toward the stem of the parent leaf. Notice that I'm holding the knife with only my fingertips.
With a good, clean rotation, the entire growth bud is excised. It scars over within minutes. On most of them, a secondary sucker does not later appear.
My impression is that, overall, I have needed to tend to suckers less with the knife method, than with breaking them off. The procedure is delicate, so I probably would not trust a paid worker to use the method with sufficient care.
If a knife is used too high up on the plant, against very small parent leaves, it will damage the immature leaf stem.
Bob
