Removing tomato leaves

[ameno]

In your experience, how many leaves can one afford to remove from tomato plants without negatively impacting the growth and ripening of the fruit?
I'm rather worried about blight (i've already removed a few infected leaflets), so ideally I'd like to remove more, but how many is too many?
If it makes a difference, these are beefsteak tomatoes. So far they have set two trusses each, and have at least a couple more each in flower. The largest fruit is currently about 6cm across.

[quanglewangle]

If you look at images of commercial tomato cultivation on google they seem to be pretty ruthless about removing leaves.

I have been trying to do the same this year too: trimming off everything at or below the lowest truss and quite a few leaves above also. Doesn't seem to affect yield although mrs quanglewangle says the fruit is not so sweet.

[burnie]

I get ruthless when we have decent sized fruit, some plants are almost leafless, if the leaf looks full of life it gets a reprieve, if it is curled or lifeless, it's off.

[coreopsis]

Definitely everything below first truss.
I remove and odd leaf here and there to encourage better air circulation and sun.

I was told a while ago to trim the tomatoes on dry days to minimise the risk of getting infected with blight (makes sense as I literally make entry points)

[Jungle Jane]

I remove all the leaves below the bottom truss of fruit,once those tomatoes have been picked I remove the next lot of leaves up to the next truss & so on. Rain easily splashes up bacteria to the leaf,I don’t like any leaves close to the ground,also I don’t let my tomato plants touch each other,if one gets blight there’s a lot less risk for its neighbour so I would remove touching leaves,it’s only a problem when it rains,the leaves don’t dry fast enough & then it’s warm & blight loves that. Pruning is only done when it’s dry the plant heals quicker.
Also,it’s easy for us to accidentally transfer blight from one plant to another,cleaning hands & tools is really important before touching the healthy tomato plants. If you’re dealing with blight stay away from the other plants.

[Penellype]

I think I am on my own here - I only remove diseased or very yellow leaves as I have found if I cut leaves off the cut tends to get botrytis in the greenhouse. This could partly be because my friend's greenhouse leaks a lot as several panes of glass are broken, so if it rains the foliage gets wet.

Outside I have not had any problems with disease, although blight arrives eventually, depending on the weather, but it usually affects the top half of the plant first in my experience, not the bottom.

[ameno]

I'll probably remove a few more leaves, then, but I don't want to overdo it. Otherwise, I'll just keep a careful eye out for blight, and remove any infected leaves immediately.
I'm also growing blight resistant tomatoes, and they are showing no signs of infection at all. It's just the beefsteak which have had the odd spot.

Outside I have not had any problems with disease, although blight arrives eventually, depending on the weather, but it usually affects the top half of the plant first in my experience, not the bottom.

That's also what I have found with blight. It's airborne, so it makes sense that the top half would be affected first (as that's where the spores fall onto first). The growth there is usually softer, too, so presumably easier for the fungus to infect.

[Bren In Pots]

I only remove the leaves under the first truss it saves splashing them when I feed/water. Mines grown in the GH border.