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I have an okra plant which has already produced two okras. Now new leaves are growing and I can see there are two new okras coming from the bottom. Is that good? Do I have to remove both the leaves and the okras coming from the bottom?

Here's an image of the plant:

enter image description here

J. Musser
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THpubs
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  • Well, please tell me there is more light than this available on a regular basis! WAY too much shade. The leaves are larger than I remember Ocra to be but plant is very healthy. Needs SUN to produce flowers/fruit. If it is not used to anymore sun than this you have to do it in stages, otherwise you could fry it with sunburn. – stormy Sep 10 '15 at 20:44
  • @stormy Ah yes it gets more sun in the day. This is the morning and also a rainy day :-) Do you think I should prune the new leaves coming from the bottom? There are also two ocras coming from there – THpubs Sep 10 '15 at 23:47
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    Once leaves aren't able to produce food for the plant, the plant starts to get rid of them. They take up more energy than they produce so YES! I'd cut the little dying leaves off the bottom and any leaves that are looking whimpy! Make sure you aren't using fertilizer with too much nitrogen...you'll get lots of vegetative growth (stems, leaves) but little flower and fruit! Use fertilizer that is (N-P-K) with N percentage number EQUAL or LESS than the numbers for Phosphorous and Potassium. Pull the teeny baby plants. Or transplant them into teeny little pots. Use potting soil only... – stormy Sep 11 '15 at 18:45
  • @stormy Great! Thanks a lot :-) I use a fertilizer named Crop Master which is created with sea weeds. We need to spray it to the leaves. It says : ... Trace elements and N.P.K and Manganese & Cobolt and Amino acids... – THpubs Sep 12 '15 at 00:57

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The Okras are the seed pods, so if you harvest them before the seeds mature, you should be fine. Like many plants, Okra slow down production, or stop, when that plant successfully matures some seeds.

As for suckers, cut em or leave em, they don't hurt the plant. Leaving them on will produce a higher quantity of shorter okras, sort of like this same situation in tomatoes. Try to get the plant into full sun for a good crop.

J. Musser
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  • There's one variety known for its suckers (Heavy Hitter okra); apparently, they say you can get a lot of okra off of it because of the suckers. I'm guessing it requires a longer season to do so, though, as my Red Burgundy okra has some branches, and I don't think it's had time to do much with them (granted it wants a longer season period, this year). I covered it up for the frost on October 11th; so, it's still alive. – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx Nov 05 '16 at 09:59