Tie the plant to the stake with strips of old nylon hose or cloth about every 12 inches up the stem. Tie the material in a loose figure 8, with the stake in one loop and the stem in the other. When training the plant to single stem, pinch out the sideshoots or suckers that form in the axil of the leaf and stem. Staking tomato plants to a single stem should produce an earlier crop. However, the fruit of staked plants are more susceptible to sunscald and blossom end rot as the removal of sucker growth reduces the leaf canopy.
Total yield is lower than alternate training methods.
If the lowest sucker is allowed to develop into a second stem, the additional foliage should reduce the occurrence of sunscald. Staking is not recommended for the shorter growing, determinate tomato varieties because yields will be drastically reduced. A popular method of training tomatoes that requires less attention is the wire cage. A tomato cage can be constructed from concrete reinforcing wire or similar material. Manufactured cages are also available at garden centers.