do my tomato plants need all their leaves?

[woahthere]

Now I know about pinching out but I just wondered. I hvae just got back off holiday and while away my greenhouse has gone mental. Ive got about 8 different varieties of tomato and they are all doing really well, got lots of big toms on, my gardeners delight are ripening already. It was quite overgrown so I started pruning back and went a bit mad and hacked loads of leaves off. Do they need their leaves now they have as much fruit as they need. In theory, if I take the leaves off will all the goodness got to the fruit so making tastier fruit or is this misguided/bonkers?!

I chop off tons of side shoots and get tons but I do it by instinct if you will...

Take off all the leaves except a few at the top, to keep the plant alive. The less foliage you have the more energy the plant puts into making the fruit.

All my family do this every year and we always get tons of (usually green because of lack of sun) tomatoes.

Don't remove the leaves unless they are yellowing, or sun scorched.

The leaves are necessary for photosynthesis and transpiration.

Pinch out the top growth if you want to, should the plant be tall enough and starting to produce fruit. This will encourage more energy to be expended into ripening further fruit rather than the plant continuing to get taller.

If you fancy you could try an experiment. Remove the leaves from one and pinch out the growing tips of the other.

I know which one will produce more fruit though