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The small side shoots that grow on your tomato plant stems are called suckers. Pruning, or desuckering, tomato plants involves removing these growths to encourage plants to produce larger, higher-quality fruit. Many tomato growers like the look of a desuckered plant and feel the plant grows healthier. Prune your plants by pinching off the suckers (or side shoots) that grow where leaves attach to the main stem.
You don't need to do it for "determinate" plants, the ones bred to produce from a compact bush rather than a sprawling vine. But since all the coolest, best-tasting tomatoes are old-fashioned sprawling "indeterminates," it's good to know suckering.
The simplest kind of suckering is when you see a sprout for a new stem growing in the "crotch" of a leaf and stem. If you pinch those off with your thumb when they are tiny, you encourage more fruit and less foliage. Good thing, since we don't eat tomato leaves.
The more complex kind of suckering is really training. With that, you purposefully leave one sucker plus the main stem and train your plant with just those two, getting rid of every other competing stem.
Cautions: In the South, don't get rid of all your tomato leaves, since you need them to shade fruit (and, of course, photosynthesize). So don't overdo it. Also, you have to be careful on some old-fashioned types since they have multiple true stems, not suckers. It's best to leave those alone, mostly.
Larger suckers root quite easily. It is a nice way to start a new batch of tomatoes in midsummer, so you'll have some fresh ones growing through fall right up to the frost. Of course, the best way to learn how to desucker is to do it with someone who knows how.
