Tomato buds

[harvey lee]

Seems every year IO have alot of buds that do not turn into little tomatoes.

I do put some fertilizer in the ground when I till it up but nothing after that.

I use to use some Miracle grow but that gave me 4ft tall bushes.

I still get alot of buds that will dry up before others start to blossom.

Why do all the first ones seem to die? Seems I would get a much larger yield if they all blossomed.

Thanks for any direction.

[hitthebricks]

We had a similar problem over the years, large plants,poor yield and bad tomatoes. A buddy told me we need to use Miracle Grow for vegetables, we were using regular miracle grow, so this year that's the plan.

Good luck

HTB

[pushbutton]

I think hitthebricks probably hit the nail on head with this. While blossom drop can be caused by many things like too high or too low of temperature, ditto with humidity, insects like thrips.....most often people are giving the plant too much nitrogen. Early in the year it is fine to use a fertilizer with a higher 1st number(nitrogen), but at this time of year to try to promote flowering/fruiting try to find something with a high middle number(phosphorous) like 5-30-5. If your plants are in a REALLY sheltered location without much wind and there are not many bees around...you could also try shaking the branches to promote pollination. Another thing could be erratic watering. Instead of more frequent light waterings.....a good long soak once or twice a week is better for the toematers as they have a pretty deep root system.

[harvey lee]

THis year I have been shaken the plant and I have used an electric toothbrush and blew into the bud as I read that the vibration of the toothbrush is like the beating of a bee's wings. That has seemeds to help a bit.

I know I do not have too much nitrogen in the dirt as I use to use to much and had to always cut the plant back to get the buds to blossom as the plant was using everything it could get to keep it alive.

Plants are in a wide open area. I only used fertlizer at the get go when I tilled the garden up, nothing since.

Maybe I water way too much. Maybe I am not giving them enough fertilizer or the wrong stuff st the wrong time. My peppers and Jalapenos have nice fruit on them but the maters have issues at times.

[pike79]

harvey,The other day I was sitting in a waiting room and was reading one of the gardening magazines,it was about stressing the plants.The article said if you give the plant to much water it wont produce as much tomatoes if you stress the plant you get more tomatoes and better tomatoes.I wasn't able to finish the story maybe some one on here has done this and could give more information.The last couple years I had the same problem,this year I moved them to a garden with lighter soil and they seem to be doing better I even have a few tomatoes growing now.

[nofishfisherman]

I've never had an issue with yield on my tomatoes.

For water I tend to water every other day depending on conditions but when its hot and dry like this its every other day.

For fetilizer I put a granual type down when I plant and then I use an organic fish emulsion. Not sure what the numbers are off the top of my head. I haven't used miracle gro for years and seem to be getting better results. The best part of using the fish fertilizer is that it makes the yard smell like a bait shop for 15-20 mintues afterward, man I love the smell of bait shops.

The other thing I do is starting when the plant is still relatively small i will prune off some of the leaves, particularily any leaves that grow off the main stalk or any of the main branches that don't look like they'll be producing fruit. Leaving the plant to grow extra bushy will limit yields as the plant has to put so much energy into its leaves. Of course don't go overboard with this, just try to keep the main trunk and branches somewhat clean. To prune the leaves I just grab the stem right next to the trunk of the plant and then bend the stem up, it provides a nice clean break right at the trunk.

[harvey lee]

I have done that in the past and again this year and yes, that works.

I am just trying to figure out what I am doing wrong that I need to remove some of the bushy plant. Somehow I must be feeding them to much as my plants are always like a small bush.

When it is hot like this and 90 plus every day, i will water the plants every morning with a sprinkler for about 20 minutes. I also have all the ground covered with mulch to cut down on the weed growth and help keep the ground from drying out.

[pushbutton]

THis year I have been shaken the plant and I have used an electric toothbrush and blew into the bud as I read that the vibration of the toothbrush is like the beating of a bee's wings.

Looks like you have done your research and sometimes the answer to your original question is "just because". Would like to see the look on your neighbors face when they watch you toothbrushing your tomatoes Could also try planting a cool season plant type like Oregon Spring and a heat set type like Sun Master and see what performs better.....or not.

[nofishfisherman]

If you have your plants mulched watering everyday for 20 minutes might be a little too much. The mulch will help hold the water so you could probably go every other or even every third day. Just keep an eye on the plant and they should tell you when they need water. If the leaves start to droop just a little then give it some water. Should see it perk up in just a matter of minutes after watering.

The other suggestion would be to plant several variaties and see if there is one or two that are better for you. Could be that some plants will just do better in your particular area. We always grow 6-8 types and are always trying new ones to see what give us the best yield.

This year we have our garden split between our house, a community garden at my office and then some at my MIL's house. In total we have 20 plants and probably 10-12 different types. Should get a good idea of what works this year.

[harvey lee]

I am sure my neighbor's thought I was nut pushbutton when I was out there on my knees with my electric toothbrush vibrating it by the buds but it did help.

[reinhard1]

should have filmed it Harvey, would have been a Utube hit . glad it worked though. good luck.

[itchmesir]

I have had no problems with my tomatoes.. it's usually my peppers that have more flowers than fruit.. once the tomatoes start ripening in my garden we'll probably have enough to can off the bat... so many greenies right now.. probably have around 6-8 dozen tomatoes

[Dotch]

I'm no tomato afficionado but a few items that appear to impact our tomato production in the higher organic matter (4 - 6%), higher clay content (Clarion-Nicollet-Webster) soils here. It seems to be related to the amount of nitrogen released from the organic matter and the amount of water holding capacity they have. The tomatoes do better here if I can keep them on the dry side. Some years that's difficult to do when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate. Not sure what you have for soils where you're at Harvey but if they happen to fall into the categories I mentioned, you may be over watering. With the hot weather, these high organic matter soils have been mineralizing nitrogen at a breakneck pace and the watering could just be making matters worse.

As far as nitrogen mineralization, last summer I watched the tomatoes planted the first week of June here diddle around until mid-August until they got serious about setting much fruit. No fertilizer was applied as the garden is on the outer edge of an old cattle lot by the looks of some 60 yr. old photos I have. Soil test would tend to back that up with Bray P running 48 ppm and K tests of 170 ppm. pH is around 6.5. The vines grew well though and were extremely healthy. It was new ground for tomatoes with no other closely related vegetables having been grown there. The varieties were Sweet 100, Roma and Celebrity. Up until mid-July we received ample rains. I watched the later planted sweet corn adjacent to the tomatoes stay a deep dark green through harvest without having had any nitrogen applied to it. That was a clue. When it froze in September, much of that fruit was still green but the vines and tomatoes were huge and they were loaded. I faithfully covered the patch hoping it wouldn't freeze again. It didn't. In October we had tomatoes coming out of our ears and still had fresh tomatoes yet at Thanksgiving time.

This year, no Roma's but Celebrity, Sweet 100's, Champion's and a yellow pear variety of some kind (My Mom Likes them). New ground, no garden ever planted on it. Planted the first 2 varieties June 3 and the latter 2 in mid-June. So far they are setting fruit well ahead of last year's pace. They are doing well in the heat. Appear to be focusing their efforts on fruit set and less on vegetative growth thus far.

[flipper]

Well I don't call myself an expert but I have been growing maters for a while and usually have a decent crop.

I plant my tomatoes in a 6' by 5' grid and let them grow all they want. I don't buy into the theory of not wanting a lot of green growth because it seems to me that those green leaves is where the tomatoes get their energy from.

I start my own plants from seeds because I like them to have a little bit of a head start over the store bought plants and also then I can have the varieties my little heart desires.

I have noticed that I do not get a lot of fruit set during this real hot weather, I get my fruit set before it gets so hot and then again after. My plants are 4 feet tall right now and the more productive ones have over 50 tomatoes on them at the moment. We have been eating tomatoes since June 20th.

Here are my tomatoes at about their peak of growth last summer.

Like Dotch we had a lot of green ones on before last Septembers frost.

The work of covering them paid off because we had maters well into November.

I fertilize them but not real heavy. A tomato plant will double its size every 28 days. I mulch with straw, and I will water once a week if it gets pretty dry. I don't like to hear that someone is watering with a sprinkler, getting that foliage wet is like laying out the red carpet for the blight.

[reinhard1]

Holy Moly Flipper!!!! i dont think i ever seen plants that big. your the man. good luck.

[eurolarva]

Rain water is high in nitrogen and we have had a lot of rain this spring. Trying to get my miracle grow in the ground has been tough with all the rain we have had. My plants started from seed in march and most are over 4 ft with not a lot of tomato growth yet. Paeony are good flowers to have near tomatoes. They attract bees like no other flower I have ever seen and help to get the pollination done without the grower having to get kinky with their plants.

[Dotch]

No doubt, rainwater contains nitrogen but I guess it depends upon what your definition of high is. Typically in MN we see somewhere in the vicinity of 5 - 10 lbs./acre of N from rainfall depending on the year, location, rainfall amount, air pollution, etc. The amount falling is increasing though as nitrogen pollution in the atmosphere increases and rainfall amounts have increased. This HSOforum gives some ballpark figures but also allows amounts of nitrogen to be tracked year to year if you visit the link to the NADP HSOforum. To convert kilograms per hectare to lbs. per acre, multiply by .88.

http://nadp.isws.illinois.edu/lib/brochures/nitrogen.pdf

http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/ntn/annualmapsbyanalyte.aspx

Look under Deposition Maps for Total Inorganic N

Flipper, either that kid is really short or those are some big azz 'maters...

[Nainoa]

Seems every year IO have alot of buds that do not turn into little tomatoes.

I do put some fertilizer in the ground when I till it up but nothing after that.

I use to use some Miracle grow but that gave me 4ft tall bushes.

I still get alot of buds that will dry up before others start to blossom.

Why do all the first ones seem to die? Seems I would get a much larger yield if they all blossomed.

Thanks for any direction.

If this was early in the season I would say that you soil is too cold, but at this point in the season it's clearly not the case.

My "Guess" is that your soil is poor in minerals like Calcium and soluable pot ash.

And there is probably a strong chance that your soil is too alkaline... Any or all of these factors being too much out of balance will keep acid loving tomatoes from setting fruit.

If you can still find a soil tester at a store, I would use it to test your soil... (Follow their directions and it will tell you what you need to know.)

Otherwise if you're at this point in the year and you can't find a soil tester (Because they've been seasonally clearanced off the shelves)

Then I would "Throw a Gardening Hail Mary" Get some Lime (Calcium) some Tomato Food specific fertilizer (Which is high in Potash) and spreadable sulfer... Mix them up till they are well dissolved and hand water each plant with it... Toss in some epsom salt for good measure.

Then follow up every week with the Tomato food pot ash... And start sucker ASAP.

(FYI suckering is something you should begin doing after the 4th of july... It's basically pinching off the little shoots that form in the crotch of branches... This makes the plant put it's energy into fruiting instead of foliage.)

[harvey lee]

I did everything you stated and other than the fact the plants keep getting taller and more blossom's, nothing new for tomatoes.

A week ago the plants wer all of 4ft high and a bit more so I thought maybe the plant was taking up too much and there was nothing left for the bud.

I cut the plants back a good 12 inches and they keep growing but no tomatoes from all the yellow flowers.

[Hoey]

Maybe lacking pollenation... lack of bees? Are you using an insecticide on the plants or elsewhere that could be killing the bees?

Just a thought.

[harvey lee]

I thought about the bee's. For 2 weeks I went out and used a elec toothbrush and held it by every bud and then blew on the bud. That's what I read to do online as it is about the same as a bee.

I know when I am out by the garden, I never see any bee's but that may be normnal to not see many.

Then I would also lighhtly shake the stem by the flower but that really did not help either.

Never had a problem with growing maters but this year has been a flop.

[KEN W]

My guess.....the pollen may not be viable in all the heat.I have noticed that I have fewer tomatoes and fewer melons setting fruit.There are plenty of bees.

[Dotch]

I think that's entirely possible. It was 95 again just 2 days ago. Kinda the same story here although in addition to plenty of bee power I probably have a few more tomatoes and melons set than I did last year at this time. Comparing apples and oranges tho due to planting date, watering schedule, pest control, etc. I've been shaking the tomatoes almost every day too as there hasn't been much for wind as of late. The squash in particular are setting what looks to be a phenomenal crop. The vines are healthy and huge. If it doesn't rain much tomorrow nite, I'm turning the water on them again Sunday nite for a couple hours and putting on another inch. Dug some spuds tonite and was surprised how much moisture there was in the hills so no need to over do it. God I love new potatoes & cucumbers. Very simple but served with fresh lamb burgers off the new grill they're tough to beat!

[KEN W]

Yes.....it's also possible that there hasn't been enough wind here also.I have 5 tomato plants growing in my greenhouse.I shake them every time I go by the door.

[harvey lee]

My guess.....the pollen may not be viable in all the heat.I have noticed that I have fewer tomatoes and fewer melons setting fruit.There are plenty of bees.

I talked with a MASTER GARDENER that works for the U of M extension service and she believes the high heat for that 1 month did the majority of my issues. I replanted 1 plant about 6-7 weeks after all the others and that one has 45 tomatoes on it right now.