Why don't tomatoes bloom and what should I do to make them bloom? Why, after active flowering, tomatoes do not set or set poorly in a greenhouse: what to do Tomatoes do not bloom well.
Tomatoes are a favorite crop of gardeners. To get an early harvest, in most regions of our country they are grown not only in open ground, but also in equipped greenhouses.
However, here gardeners may be faced with a difficult question: “Why don’t the tomatoes set or set poorly in the greenhouse, what to do and how to save the harvest?”
Conditions necessary for setting tomatoes
It is sometimes difficult for an inexperienced summer resident to “please” tomatoes. It is especially important to take into account all the features of the plant during the period of its flowering and fruit set:
- Fruit setting occurs best at a temperature of +21 - +23°C;
- comfortable air humidity in the greenhouse is 60%;
- tomatoes require watering only at the root (so that water does not get on the stems, leaves and flowers);
- watering plants at the flowering stage should be infrequent (a couple of times a week), but plentiful;
- Frequent loosening of the soil is required;
- Mulching the soil is encouraged.
Violation of the temperature regime in the greenhouse
Tomatoes are very picky about temperature conditions. Therefore, even in a greenhouse you need to very carefully monitor changes in air temperature. After all, it is precisely its fluctuations that often become the main reason why fruit ovaries do not form on the bushes after flowering.
Important! A clear sign of a lack of heat will be that the plant’s stems and leaves develop too intensively, but the flowers are weak.
- If the plant is too hot during the flowering period, the flowers will not be pollinated. The fact is that at temperatures above +30°C, the plant’s pollen loses its fertilizing properties. Even overheating for 1 day will be enough for tomatoes to lose their ability to set fruit.
- Air temperatures below +15°C will be too cold for flowering tomatoes. In this case, the plant will stop its growth, the development and fertilization of flowers will not occur.
- At night, it is important to ensure optimal temperature and access to fresh air in the greenhouse. If the plant overheats in the dark, it will spend too much energy and nutrients to maintain vital functions; on a weakened plant, fruits will not set after flowering. If it is quite cold at night, then the heating in the greenhouse should be turned on: after a hot day, condensation may form on the bushes, and the humidity will rise sharply.
Advice! To water tomatoes in a greenhouse, do not use too cold water; this can lead to freezing of the plant roots and problems with fruit set.
Controlling humidity when setting tomatoes
- A significant increase in air humidity in the greenhouse will inevitably lead to the absence of ovaries on tomatoes - the flowers will simply begin to crumble. The fact is that, saturated with excess moisture, the pollen sticks together and loses the ability to spill out of the anthers, which means pollination cannot occur. Excess moisture can form in the greenhouse after watering: if the windows are closed, moisture begins to settle on the leaves and flowers of the plant - this phenomenon is called the greenhouse effect.
- On the contrary, if the air in the greenhouse is too dry, then the pollen already on the pistil will not be able to germinate. However, once the fruits have set, the plant will normally be able to tolerate short dry periods.
- To increase air humidity and slightly reduce the temperature, you can pour cold water on the paths in the greenhouse. However, such humidification can be carried out only in the first half of the day, so that the evaporation of moisture at night does not create a greenhouse effect in the greenhouse.
Important! If you notice that the plant is drooping and its leaves are starting to curl, this is an alarming signal and a sure sign of a lack of moisture.
“Nutrition” of tomatoes in a greenhouse
Even during the period of planting seedlings in a greenhouse, many gardeners make a serious mistake - they overfeed the young plant with fertilizers. Often mullein, bird droppings, urea or saltpeter are used - fertilizers containing large amounts of nitrogen. After all, it is difficult to resist feeding when after it the seedlings become stronger and grow literally before our eyes. However, such growth of leaf mass under the influence of nitrogen leads to the fact that fruits on the bush do not set, and the roots of the bush become weak.
Therefore, it is very important to know that fertilizing with nitrogen-containing fertilizers can be carried out only after fruits have set on the bushes. In this case, the beneficial substances will not go into leaf growth, but into fruit development.
Another problem is the decrease in the amount of potassium in the soil during fruit set. As for urea, it is used for depleted soils, so there is no need to use urea in a greenhouse.
What to do if the plant is overfed with fertilizers
If you notice that all the strength of the plant goes into the leaves, and the flowers are weak and do not pollinate, you need to:
- temporarily stop watering tomato bushes;
- ventilate the greenhouse well so that the air becomes drier;
- carry out foliar and root feeding of tomatoes with phosphorus fertilizer;
- remove some of the leaves, especially those that cover the flowers from the sun and air access.
Pollination of tomatoes in a greenhouse
If tomatoes are grown in the ground, then their pollination occurs naturally: wind and insects carry pollen. However, if you are growing a crop in a greenhouse, you cannot ignore the issue of pollination.
- In the warm season, greenhouses must be opened for ventilation and access for beneficial insects. And if the air temperature outside is stable and stays within +20 - +26°C, then you can leave the greenhouse open even at night.
- In the cold season, when tomatoes are grown in a heated greenhouse, pollination should be carried out artificially, and care should be taken about the ventilation system.
Advice! To attract bees to naturally pollinate tomatoes, plant honey plants in the greenhouse or simply bring pots of flowers.
How to pollinate tomatoes in a greenhouse artificially
If you notice that natural pollination does not occur and there is no ovary on the tomatoes, then take measures to pollinate manually. There are several effective ways to do this:
- Lightly shake the tomato plant or tap its main stem. Often such a slight movement is enough to wake up the pollen.
- You can create an artificial gust of wind using a fan. To do this, turn on the device and walk with it along the rows of tomatoes.
- The oldest method of hand pollination involves the use of an ordinary brush. This way you can transfer pollen to the pistil of the flower.
- Some gardeners use an electric toothbrush for hand pollination. Turn on the device and bring it to the flower (do this carefully so as not to damage the plant). Vibrating the brush will help transfer pollen.
Important! You can visually determine whether a flower is pollinated. If pollination has occurred, the flower petals will open and tilt back.
It is very important to water the tomatoes after pollination, and also lightly spray them with a spray bottle - this will create the air humidity necessary for pollen germination.
Forming a bush for setting tomato fruits
Even if everything is in order with the temperature and humidity in the greenhouse, fruits may not set on the bushes. And the problem may lie in the plant itself, or more precisely, in the mistakes of inexperienced summer residents.
- Many hybrid varieties of tomatoes cannot be grown from their own seeds - such plants will not produce ovaries.
- Spraying with pesticides during the flowering period will certainly have a negative impact on fruit set (pollen will lose its productivity).
- Care must be taken to ensure that no harmful insects or fungal diseases appear on the bushes. A weakened plant will not bear fruit.
- Tomatoes must have enough sun, so you need to set up a greenhouse on the sunny side of the site, and also plant the bushes so that they are not crowded and do not block each other’s light.
- Leave one stem on each bush and pruning - this will make the bush stronger and prepare it for fruit development.
How to treat tomatoes for fruit set in a greenhouse
In order to increase the yield of tomatoes, experienced gardeners recommend spraying them with a solution of boric acid during flowering. To do this, dissolve boric acid powder (10 g) in one bucket of warm water.
A lack of phosphorus can be detrimental to bushes. To feed tomatoes, you will need superphosphate extract or phosphate fertilizer.
- To obtain superphosphate extract, dilute it (3 tablespoons) in a liter of warm water. And then let the composition brew for two days. Don't forget to stir the solution. Then remove the sediment, and the resulting tincture can be fed to the plants: 1 liter per root.
- Phosphate fertilizer can be purchased at a specialty store. It contains 50% phosphorus and 40% potassium. The powder dissolves quickly in water and is immediately ready for use.
Advice! Root feeding is applied after the bushes are watered with ordinary water.
Pollination conditions for tomatoes in a greenhouse: video
Fruit setting of tomatoes in a greenhouse: photo
The yield of tomatoes varies from year to year, this is especially noticeable when grown in open ground. In greenhouses, suitable conditions for plant growth are created artificially. However, often there the flowers either do not bloom on the bushes or fall off for no apparent reason. In both cases the fruits are not set. Let's figure out why tomatoes don't bloom in greenhouses.
What do plants lack?
Most often, flowering does not begin due to inappropriate plant conditions. If this happens in open ground, then weather conditions are to blame. In a greenhouse or greenhouse, the conditions are created artificially. If you do not ventilate it in a timely manner or excessively humidify the air, then you should not expect a good harvest. First of all, tomatoes need warmth; these plants will not produce flowers or fruits in the cold.
However, you should not create conditions close to tropical for them. At 35 degrees above zero, pollen becomes sterile. You should not water them with cold water or ventilate the greenhouse when the outside temperature is below 15 degrees. Due to prolonged coolness, flowers do not bloom and pollen does not ripen.
Creating temperature conditions is not so difficult, while you will have to work on timely watering and irrigation. Tomatoes tolerate drought only if it hits them at a suitable stage of the growing season. If you don’t water the tomatoes at the time of flowering, the inflorescences will fall off and you shouldn’t expect fruit. Due to cracked and dry soil, oxygen is poorly supplied to the roots. High humidity is also dangerous - pollen clumps into clumps, and plants begin to suffer from fungal infections.
Common reasons
Not only weather conditions can lead to the absence of ovaries; gardeners name a larger number of factors. Flowering is unproductive in the following cases:
- bushes planted too closely create shade for each other (this reason especially often reduces the yield of cherry tomatoes);
- passion for nitrogenous fertilizers;
- lack of phosphorus and potassium;
- there are no ovaries due to lack of stem strength (this problem occurs in plants with large fruits or with long trusses to form a large number of tomatoes);
- diseases.
Another problem may be self-harvesting seeds. In this case, the tomatoes bloom double flowers, but you shouldn’t expect a lot of fruit from them.
Treatment with chemicals often results in empty flowers or a complete absence of inflorescences.
Ways to combat lack of flowering
So, most often the inflorescences do not bloom due to unfavorable conditions. You need to fight them according to the rules:
- If, after planting the seedlings in the greenhouse, cold weather sets in, then it is necessary to install heating equipment. These can be electric heaters or potbelly stoves.
- The air temperature, which is several degrees below 15, can actually be raised by watering the plants with warm water. In an open space, you can place dark plastic bottles filled with water between the bushes; they will act as heat accumulators. They need to be removed at night.
- You can install arches over plants planted in open ground, on which you place dark covering material. At night, additionally cover the greenhouses with burlap and blankets. Due to their size, greenhouses cannot be insulated in this way.
- For watering, use only warm water. If your dacha has a water supply system or a well, then fill the barrels with water in the morning and start watering only in the evening.
- As the weather gets warmer, ventilate the greenhouse and open the greenhouses. Do not close the door tightly at night to allow the pollen to mature.
If the listed methods of creating favorable conditions do not help, then it is worth turning to other measures. Remove from the bushes all flowers that have not formed ovaries. Thanks to this event, the plant will direct its energies to re-blooming. It will already be successful. As a preventive measure, it is necessary to correctly plant tomatoes and follow the bush formation technique.
Tomatoes may not be the most demanding plants in the garden, but they can also cause a lot of trouble. An increased susceptibility to diseases, demands on the composition of fertilizers, temperature and humidity, all this makes caring for them a little difficult. But it happens that everything seems to be in order, the plant is not sick, it is fertilized, but it just does not bloom. For what reason tomatoes do not bloom and how to deal with it, you will learn from this article.
Possible causes and solutions
Why don’t tomatoes bloom even though all the conditions for their fruitful development have been created? There may be several reasons. Firstly, overfeed the plants with fertilizers, then they actively increase the green mass, but do not form inflorescences. Secondly, a lack of nutrients, when the plant simply does not have the strength to bloom. Thirdly, temperature changes or too high a temperature at which the inflorescences are sterilized. Fourthly, diseases.
The list is endless, so let's take a closer look at some of the options and figure out what to do in each case.
Seedling quality
The quality of seedlings and seeds plays a very important role. Perhaps the manufacturer was dishonest in storing, packaging or processing the seeds, and now they are not suitable for fruitful cultivation. To avoid this option, be sure to check the seeds before planting for germination, and also disinfect them.
Fertilizers
If the seedlings have grown into large and beautiful, dense, green bushes, but there are still no ovaries, perhaps you have overdone it with nitrogen fertilizers. As is known, nitrogen stimulates the greening of plants, but does little to promote flowering and fruit formation. You can cope with this by adding sawdust to the soil, which will absorb some of the nitrogen fertilizers, and within a few days you will see your tomatoes bloom.
It happens that the reason lies in the lack of fertilizer. Tomatoes without phosphorus and magnesium are especially affected. Try to maintain a balance of substances in the soil throughout the season. Or feed yeast so that the plant receives a safe dose of nutrition.
Remember that you need to fertilize tomatoes no more than 4 times throughout the entire season.
Air temperature
It often happens that tomatoes do not bloom due to too low temperatures if they are in open ground. At the same time, too high a temperature in a greenhouse can also lead to tomato infertility. A comfortable air temperature range from 16 to 30⁰С, higher or lower, puts tomatoes in a state of stress in which they do not bloom. What to do in this case?
When tomatoes grow in a greenhouse and suffer from high temperatures, it is worth ventilating the room as often as possible, covering it from sunlight and creating shade. If the temperature, on the contrary, is too low, then the room should be insulated, for example, by adding rotted manure as biofuel in the spring.
If the temperature in the greenhouse is too high at night, then this may also be one of the reasons why the bushes do not bloom: they spend all their energy reserves on breathing. Again, you should ventilate the room or install containers with water that will absorb some of the heat and also maintain air humidity in the greenhouse.
Lack of lighting
Tomatoes do not tolerate either an excess of sunlight or a lack of it. It is important to maintain a balance between the first and second. Most likely, the lack of light lies in the excessive density of plantings; shaded bushes do not bloom because they “do not see” the meaning and light. Perform pinching and thoroughly thin out the tomato rows to give more room for growth. Most likely, after this procedure the tomatoes will bloom. Thinning is necessary every few weeks to prevent the beds from turning into a thicket.
Weather
Sometimes plants don't bloom due to bad weather. If it was rainy and cloudy on the eve of the flowering period, this is the reason. The thing is that the pollen becomes too heavy and pollination becomes impossible. In this case, you will have to make a solution of boric acid and spray the bushes to attract insects that will pollinate the plants. If tomatoes are grown in a greenhouse, then insects will not help. What to do in this case? Shake off the bushes with your own hands to help them pollinate.
Weak root system
An undeveloped root system is a death sentence for tomato flowering. Why do roots develop poorly and what to do? First of all, regularly carry out pinching and pinching, remove damaged and yellowed leaves. Mulching the soil will help cope with the problem. Make sure that the plant receives enough moisture and nutrients.
Diseases
Finally, the last option that answers the question “why” is illness. Tomato is a crop sensitive to fungal diseases, so if you have not carried out prevention against late blight, tobacco mosaic virus, then this is one of the possible reasons for the lack of flowering of tomatoes. Infected plants cannot remain in the greenhouse, so they should be removed, and the remaining ones should be thoroughly treated with antiseptic and antifungal drugs.
Video “Tomato flowering and fruiting stimulator”
Why the tomatoes stopped blooming in the greenhouse is a question that can puzzle any person involved in growing tomatoes. This problem must be solved, because if there are no flowers, there will be no harvest. In order to take some action to eliminate the problem, you need to find out the reasons why this happens and build on that.
There can be many reasons why tomatoes began to bloom poorly. As a rule, this happens because the tomatoes are missing something.
So, the main reasons why this happens:
- Reduced air temperature (below +15) or soil - if there is not enough heat for plants, they can not only lose their color, but also die;
- It is too hot in the greenhouse - at high temperatures (over +30) the conditions for the growth of tomatoes are also difficult;
- Increased or decreased soil or air humidity - as a rule, this is overwatering or underwatering of plants;
- Lack of pollination - if in open ground conditions this happens naturally, then in greenhouses it is necessary to pollinate flowers artificially.
The optimal temperature that should be maintained in the greenhouse is 20-25 degrees.
If the plant has too massive stems and leaves, but no flowers or they are very weak, this is the main sign that the plant is cold. And if the leaves curl, the tops dry out, and in addition the soil at the roots is cracked, the tomato does not have enough moisture.
Tomatoes bloom very poorly in a greenhouse: what affects this
In addition to the main factors influencing the growth of flowers in tomatoes, there are also additional ones.
These include:
- Planting cuttings too densely - the sun cannot penetrate to the roots due to the leaves hiding the soil;
- Lack of phosphorus or potassium - occurs if plants are not fertilized;
- Nitrogen oversaturation - appears when a tomato is “overfed” with manure;
- Growing tomatoes from your own seeds;
- Various diseases;
- Treatment of plants with pesticides.
It happens that the stems simply do not have enough strength to form an ovary. This problem may occur in varieties with multiple fruits or those that produce large tomatoes.
Tomatoes do not bloom in a greenhouse: what to do and how to deal with them
After finding out the reasons why tomatoes bloom poorly, you can begin to eliminate them.
What to do for this:
- Be sure to adjust the temperature if this is the problem - during cold nights you need to heat the greenhouse well (potbelly stoves or ordinary heaters will help here);
- To increase air humidity and reduce temperature, you can pour cold water on the paths in the greenhouse - but this should only be done in the first half of the day to prevent condensation;
- You can raise the temperature by several degrees by watering the tomatoes with warm water (provided that outside it has dropped to +15);
- Any plants need an influx of fresh air - if it’s warm outside, the greenhouses need to be ventilated, and if the outside temperature is constant - +20 - +26, the doors of the room can be left open all night;
- If the problem is the lack of pollination (a pollinated flower usually has open and tilted petals), it is necessary to do this artificially or attract bees by placing pots with honey-bearing flowers in the greenhouse;
- If all else fails, you need to remove all existing barren flowers - in this way, the plant will quickly direct its forces to the formation of a new ovary.
When watering tomatoes, you need to make sure that the water is not too cold, otherwise the roots of the plants will freeze and there will be no ovary.
What to do if tomatoes are “overloaded” with vitamins? There are several ways to solve the problem:
- Apply root and foliar fertilizing with phosphate fertilizer;
- Remove some of the foliage, especially that which covers the roots from the sun and interferes with normal air circulation;
- Ventilate the greenhouse thoroughly;
- Stop watering the plants for a while.
“Overfed” tomatoes can be recognized by large, fleshy leaves and weak ovaries.
By the way, some hybrids may not bear fruit during subsequent cultivation. When purchasing, you need to carefully read the information on the packaging.
Tomatoes do not bloom: gardener mistakes and preventive measures
It happens that not only external factors provoke a lack of flowering on tomatoes, but also summer residents themselves, due to inexperience or ignorance, make a number of mistakes.
The most common ones are:
- Growing some hybrids from your own seeds - such tomatoes will not set;
- Treating plants with pesticides when they bloom;
- Incorrect location of the greenhouse and, as a result, lack of heat;
- Planting seedlings too densely – plants should not interfere with each other’s development.
In order to prevent the flowers of tomatoes from weakening, they need proper care:
- If various insects or fungal formations appear on the leaves of the plant, you need to immediately begin to fight them;
- There is no need to “feed” plants with nitrogen fertilizers when they bloom - it is better to do this after the flowers appear;
- To ensure that tomatoes have enough vitamins, before flowering begins, you need to fertilize them with double superphosphate and potassium sulfate, adding 15 g of each substance to a bucket of water.
If the greenhouse is not heated, then it is better to delay planting seedlings until there is a risk of cold weather returning.
The most comfortable living conditions for tomatoes are:
- 60% air humidity in the greenhouse;
- +20 – + 25 – optimal air temperature;
- Water abundantly a couple of times a week for plants in the flowering phase;
- Frequent loosening of the soil and mulching of the soil.
Tomatoes should be watered only at the root so that water does not fall on other parts of it.
Reasons why tomatoes do not bloom in a greenhouse (video)
As you can see, problems with color can occur for a variety of reasons, ranging from external factors to gardener mistakes. However, everything can be fixed. The main thing is to correctly identify the source of the plant’s discomfort. You can play it safe and plant several types of tomatoes, which differ in resistance to climatic conditions. In this case, even if the ovary of one variety is empty, you can get a harvest from another.
Why do our tomatoes bloom but not set fruit? Or, as they say, why are there empty flowers on tomatoes? Tomato set in warm weather It’s spring, the sun warms up, and the flowers fall off and fall off.
If they receive inadequate nutrition and are stunted, then it is clear that the plant simply sheds the ovary, by its nature understanding that it cannot cope with “bearing” the crop. And if everything is in order with the nutrition and the bushes are a sight to behold, then the main reason is simple.
This is the low temperature at night and early morning during flowering. After all, it is at night that pollen ripens, and in the morning the pistil of the ovary is pollinated by it. For tomatoes, the optimal growth temperature is from +20 to +25°C.
Already at +15°C, tomatoes completely stop flowering(there seems to be a flower, but it is completely unopened), and at +10°C the growth of the entire bush stops. If your tomatoes are blooming with all their might, but there are no ovaries, it means they are cold. And the weather conditions are to blame for this.
It is almost impossible to combat this except by heating the greenhouse, but in open ground this method is impossible. That’s why people say that last year was a tomato year, but this year is not, and nothing can be done about it.
You can use preparations like “Ovary”, but then the tomato bushes will produce inferior fruits, set without pollination and practically containing no seeds, and they will differ in taste and consistency from those that should be characteristic of the variety. In addition, these fruits will take a lot of nutrients from subsequent clusters.
Based on my many years of experience, I suggest not to panic and not to rush into bad forecasts for the harvest, because in reality the whole summer is still ahead and warm weather will definitely come. Firstly, (this also applies to open ground and greenhouses) all flowers that have not set must be picked off, and if there is not one set fruit in the cluster, then the entire cluster must be cut off.
This will help the bush to focus all its development on the rapid formation of subsequent clusters, in which it will try to increase the number and quality of flowers. Secondly (this is only for greenhouses) try to provide at least some kind of heating that can maintain the temperature in the greenhouse at night above +15°C.
The choice here is huge. These include electric heaters, stove heating and gas boilers... Who has the capabilities and desire for what.
There are also certain folk tricks, such as: Watering with warm water late in the evening, in the hope that the damp soil has a higher heat capacity and will retain heat until the morning. Placing daytime heat accumulators in the greenhouse in the form of various containers with water (from plastic bottles to huge barrels) which at night will release the temperature accumulated during the day to the greenhouse.
Plus additional cover with mats, artificial felts, etc. In practice, these methods have virtually no effect, except in cases where the temperature difference is not so great. For example, when it’s +12°C at night, the missing 3°C can be saved using these methods.
In other cases, no. Let's summarize all of the above: If you do not have the opportunity to warm your tomatoes using artificial methods, then as soon as night temperatures naturally rise above +15°C, the tomatoes will begin to set and set themselves.
And the main thing is to preserve the power of the bushes for this good time, and they, in turn, will provide the budding tomatoes with such nutrition that you will not only not lose in the harvest from late spring and early summer cold nights, but will even get a higher and higher quality harvest, albeit a little belated. It happens, and quite often, that we nursed the seedlings and planted them. And now it blooms and blooms, but the tomato is still missing and gone - the faded flowers simply fall off, the stalk turning yellow... It is already clear that the stalk has turned yellow and soon the faded flower will fall off.
Possible reasons.
Temperature.
The most common reasons why flowers fall off are too high (sometimes too low) temperature and not optimal humidity. The fact is that pollination of flowers is possible only in the “comfort zone”, when night temperatures range from + 13 to + 21 degrees, and daytime temperatures do not exceed + 28 - + 29 degrees. Just a few hours at a temperature of + 40 degrees is enough - and you get an almost guaranteed flower reset.
It will also be interesting for many that increased, seemingly comfortable, night temperatures+ 22 + 25 degrees will be detrimental to the potential harvest. The fact is that tomatoes “rest” when the temperature at night is +20 degrees and below, and if it is warmer, then their state can be compared to a person who is not allowed to sleep at night. Often in such cases traditional spraying with boric acid solutions does not help.
Humidity.
The second most common reason (and maybe the first, in some places) is air humidity other than acceptable. It is more difficult for us to control. And the humidity range at which tomatoes are well pollinated is from 40% to 70%.
And if raising the humidity is quite simple - just spray the bushes with water in the morning (preferably with a light solution of complex fertilizer), then lowering the air humidity is more difficult. In humid regions, care should be taken with mulching and occasional watering in bottomless bottles dug near the bushes.
Excess or lack of nitrogen.
Our tomatoes love nitrogen, no matter what anyone says. But for an experienced gardener it is clear that if tomatoes are overfed with nitrogen, they begin to fatten - they produce a lot of fatty foliage, a thick and beautiful stem, but such a beautiful bush blooms sluggishly and reluctantly, there are few flowers in the cluster, and even those often fall off.
Therefore, having learned from the bitter experience of overfeeding, gardeners often make the opposite mistake - they do not provide enough nitrogen to the tomatoes. And, again, with disastrous results.
Underfed tomatoes are sullenly engaged in growing the first cluster, somehow pushing the trunk from moderate to stunted thickness, but they are reluctant to set the fruits on the second or third cluster. Then, when the first cluster is full and nitrogen consumption is reduced, the plant knits 3-4 clusters, skipping, for example, the second. As you understand, this reason is easy to deal with - just fertilize your tomatoes regularly.
Other reasons that, although less likely, are also quite possible:
- overloading the plant with fruits;
Tomatoes need certain conditions to form ovaries. Coming from southern countries, tomatoes are very demanding in terms of growing conditions. It is not without reason that in the same area in different years the yield of the same variety can vary significantly depending on weather conditions.
They can be leveled out by growing plants in greenhouses and greenhouses, but even in this case it happens that the tomato flowers fall off or they simply do not bear fruit. Why this happens and whether it is possible to influence the situation, we will tell you in this article.
What are tomatoes missing?
There can be many reasons why tomatoes in a greenhouse do not set. Some of them are associated precisely with being in protected conditions, that is, with some isolation from the outside world, but there are also objective reasons that do not depend on the location and actions of the gardener.
Temperature
Tomatoes love heat very much. At low air and soil temperatures, they will not only not bear fruit, but also not grow, or even die. However, extreme heat also has a detrimental effect on the growth and formation of fruits.
The ideal temperature for pollinating flowers is 20-25 degrees. So:
- When the air temperature drops below 15 degrees, the pollen simply does not ripen. The same thing happens if the tomatoes are watered with cold water (see How to water tomatoes in a greenhouse and maintain normal air humidity). If the cool weather lasts for a long time, there will be no ovaries on the flowers that have already appeared.
Unpollinated flowers dry out and fall off
- Even worse is extreme heat. Even a short increase in temperature to 35 degrees or more causes the pollen to become sterile.
Humidity
If the temperature can be easily measured and in some way regulated with your own hands, then with humidity everything is more complicated. Moreover, the humidity of both soil and air matters. So:
- Tomatoes are considered a moisture-loving crop, but can easily tolerate drought. However, it all depends on the stage of the growing season. If there is insufficient watering during the period of seedling growth and flowering, the flowers will fall off before they have time to form an ovary.
Note. Signs of a lack of moisture are curling leaves and drooping plant tops. As well as cracking of the soil under tomatoes. Curling leaves are a sign of lack of moisture
- High air humidity not only leads to the development of fungal diseases. With it, pollen cannot spill out of the anthers, as it sticks together into lumps. And too dry air prevents the germination of pollen on the pistil.
Pollination
The most logical explanation for why there is no ovary on tomatoes in a greenhouse is the lack of pollination. In open ground, flowers are pollinated by insects; this is also facilitated by the wind, due to which the pollen scatters and is transported from place to place. In closed greenhouses, plants are deprived of this; conditions for pollination must be created artificially (see How to pollinate tomatoes in a greenhouse and whether this should be done).
Other reasons
The circumstances listed above are most often the reason for the lack of ovaries on tomatoes, but there are others. Some of them can lead to complete or partial loss of the crop. So:
- Lack of sun, resulting from very thick plantings; Excess nitrogen, leading to modification of flowers. Occurs primarily as a result of excessive fertilization of plants with manure; Lack of certain nutrients, mainly potassium and phosphorus; The plant lacks the strength to form ovaries from all flowers, especially when it comes to growing large-fruited or multiple-fruited varieties of tomatoes in a greenhouse; Diseases - plants affected by them shed flowers;
Many diseases cannot be treated; plants affected by them must be removed from the greenhouse
- Growing tomatoes from your own seeds; Treatment with pesticides, resulting in reduced pollen productivity.
How to fix the situation
If you see that the plants do not feel well in the greenhouse, the flowers fall off or do not form an ovary, you must first establish the reasons why this is happening and try to eliminate them. The following instructions will tell you what to do in each specific case:
- If cold weather is expected, you need to think about heating the greenhouse. This can be done using electric heaters or portable potbelly stoves (see Stove for a greenhouse: what do experts advise?). If the air temperature outside drops slightly below 15 degrees and only at night, in the greenhouse it can be raised by several degrees by watering plants with warm water. You can also use daytime heat accumulators: dark-colored containers with water or plastic bottles also filled with water placed in rows.
Barrels with water heated during the day will give off heat at night
- At night, the greenhouse should be covered with film, old blankets, and other sheets that prevent heat from escaping.
Advice. Try not to plant seedlings in unheated greenhouses too early, when the threat of return frost remains. Or grow tomatoes that are resistant to low temperatures (Sentyabrina, Dobrodeya, Khalif, etc.).
- Do not water plants with cold water from a well or tap. It must be collected in advance into barrels or other containers for settling and heating. When hot weather sets in, ventilate the greenhouse often, leave it open at night - pollen ripens at night. If the above methods do not help, mercilessly remove all flowers that have not formed an ovary, so that tomatoes put all their energy into developing new flowers and ovaries.
Double flowers as in the photo also need to be removed - they produce small and ugly fruits
- To ensure access of sun and air to all parts of the plant, it is necessary to form the bush correctly. How to do this is shown in detail in the video. Formation consists of pinching (see Pinning tomatoes in a greenhouse, why is this necessary?), topping, tying tomatoes to supports. Ventilation of greenhouses is necessary both to maintain optimal air humidity and for pollination. In calm weather, in order for the flowers to be pollinated, you will have to artificially create air movement using a fan. You can simply gently shake the stems and brushes to disperse the pollen. This should be done in the morning.
If there are not many plants, you can transfer pollen with a small brush or paintbrush.
- Don't grow tomatoes from your own seeds.
For reference. Many hybrids are unable to bear fruit when re-grown. Look carefully at the packaging with seeds - hybrids are designated F1.
- Do not overdo it with nitrogen fertilizers during the flowering period. Tomatoes should be fed with mullein at the initial stage of the growing season, before the flowers appear. And to provide plants with potassium and phosphorus before flowering, fertilize with potassium sulfate and double superphosphate, dissolving 15 g of each fertilizer in a bucket of water. The price of these drugs is low, so there is no point in saving on them, although many replace them with ordinary wood ash.
Conclusion
Knowing why tomato flowers fall off in a greenhouse and ovaries do not form, in most cases you can prevent or stop this process. To be on the safe side, plant several different varieties that are resistant to both low and high temperatures. Then you will always have a harvest.
Why don't tomatoes set?
We have heard more than once that tomatoes seem to bloom well, but it doesn’t come to fruit set. Let's try to understand the reasons for such “failures.” Tomatoes are a heat-demanding vegetable crop, and we are in a hurry to plant them in open ground.
Often the first, already formed, flower clusters are found in low, although positive temperatures. But the best temperature for pollination is 20 - 25 degrees Celsius. When it drops below 15 degrees Celsius, pollen maturation is inhibited.
And if it rises above 35 degrees Celsius, it becomes sterile and non-viable. For plants of certain varieties, a short-term increase in temperature is enough for the pollen to die. Agronomists say that hybrids Lola and Handsome can easily withstand the heat.
And such varieties as Dobrodeya, Kumushka, Sentyabrina and Filya, Fairy, Khalif can set fruit even at 14 - 16 ° C. Good soil moisture for tomatoes is 70 - 75%. These numbers explain little to the gardener, but anyone can notice signs of trouble (compacted and even cracked soil, drooping leaves and tops of plants).
Drying the soil during the growing season of plants, even at the seedling stage, leads to the flying of flowers and ovaries. Air humidity is also of great importance. At elevated temperatures, pollen sticks together into lumps or does not emerge from the anthers at all.
If the atmospheric humidity is insufficient, pollen germination on the pistil is also problematic. This problem often begins in poorly ventilated greenhouses. Tomatoes are poorly pollinated in calm weather. What can we say about greenhouses!
Therefore, when plants are flowering in the morning, it is recommended to shake off the stems with your hands. And carefully touch the flowering brushes so that the pollen scatters. Excess nitrogen entails changes in the flower. The sepals become larger and brighter, and the stamen cone is almost absent.
Nitrogen fertilizing is carried out only in the first growing season. Feed the tomatoes with mullein infusion (1:6) adding 12 - 15 g of potassium sulfate and double superphosphate to 1 bucket of infusion. Instead of mineral fertilizers, you can add 0.5 liters of ash.
If there is a shortage of mullein, fertilizing is done with a solution of complex mineral fertilizers. The lack of phosphorus and potassium slows down the growth of fruits and affects the quality and quantity of seeds. These nutrients are especially needed during the formation and growth of fruits. They strive to avoid thickening of plantings in greenhouses and open ground.
Plants should be planted and shaped in a timely manner. Plants do not produce fruits, first of all because they are grown from “their” seeds. Plants defeated by diseases shed flowers and fruits.
But you should know that treating plants with pesticides, in turn, causes a significant decrease in pollen fertility. The problem most often begins when growing large-fruited varieties and varieties with a complex raceme. In the first case, it is advised to leave 3 - 4 flowers in the brush, in the second - no more than 15 - 20.
Why tomatoes don't bloom in the garden
It has long been established that the yield of any crop directly depends on the quality of the seedlings, but quite often it happens that excellent seedlings do not bring the expected result, and a plant with a beautiful powerful stem does not bloom, blooms, but only a little, or its buds wither. It often happens that that the tomato bush grows quite wildly, but the color appears either very late or in very small quantities, this means that sawdust needs to be added to the soil, they will draw out excess nitrogen from the plant, which enters it along with the fertilizer. The method is very simple, but tested by time and tomatoes. It also happens that a tomato bush has abundant flowering, but for some reason the ovary is missing.
Most likely, the reason is low temperature; if the average daily temperature is below 16°, a very high temperature will also be harmful, so the average should not exceed 30°. If weather conditions give high temperatures during the day, then ventilate the greenhouse more often, or create shade around it; if the outside temperature is low, then try to insulate the greenhouse in any available way.
What affects the number of ovaries? The number of tomato ovaries can also be affected by a lack of sunlight, so the plants need to be planted so that the sun's rays pass between them.
If the tomatoes are planted too densely, it is better to tear through the excess, anyway, such bushes will be of almost no use. A large distance between tomato bushes is also a kind of disease prevention.
To compensate for the light, experienced gardeners feed the bushes with potassium fertilizers, exceeding the norm by one and a half to two times, but here you need to be very careful, because you can overfeed the plant, and the soil may already be saturated with potassium. Bad weather during the flowering of the bushes can have a bad effect on the ovary , because cloudy weather makes pollen sticky and heavy. In such a situation, you will need to spray the ovary with a solution of boric acid (2 g per bucket of water).
If weather conditions do not improve, then after a few days the tomato spraying should be repeated. For spraying, you can also use specially designed preparations that are sold in gardening stores.
If the weather is dry, then the air around you needs to be slightly humidified. Everything described above will help you understand why the tomatoes do not bloom on your site and do everything possible to ensure that the fruits set and bring you a good harvest.
© medmoon.ru
Why don't tomatoes set?
I think many gardeners are familiar with the situation when tomatoes begin to bloom without any problems, but that’s where it all ends and the ovaries are never seen. Let’s try to find out what causes such “failures” and why tomatoes don’t set. Tomatoes are a type of vegetable crop that requires heat for normal growth and development.
Therefore, it is not surprising that, in a hurry to plant them in open ground, we sometimes do not see the fruits. There are often cases when the first flower clusters that have managed to form are exposed to low, albeit positive, temperatures.
To avoid difficulties with pollination, the air temperature should be 20-25 degrees Celsius. If it falls below the 15-degree mark, there is a delay in pollen maturation.
If the temperature rises above 35 degrees Celsius, the pollen becomes sterile. For tomatoes to develop normally, the soil in which they grow must have a humidity of about 70-75%. Of course, for a simple gardener these figures are not of particular practical use, but everyone can still see that there is something wrong with the soil (excessive density, cracking, wilted leaves and plant tops).
If during the growing season there is a lack of moisture in the soil, even if we are talking only about seedlings, then the consequence of this is that the tomatoes do not set, that is, flowers and ovaries fall off. Air humidity also plays a significant role. During the heat, pollen sticks together and forms into balls, or it does not emerge from the anthers at all.
If the air humidity is not at the optimal level, then difficulties arise with the germination of pollen on the pistil. In most cases, gardeners who do not properly ventilate greenhouses face a similar problem. On windless days, difficulties also arise with pollinating tomatoes.
When growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, this problem becomes even more urgent. In this regard, when plants enter the flowering phase, it is advisable to shake the stems in the morning.
You should also gently touch the flowering clusters, causing the pollen to scatter, thanks to which the tomatoes begin to set. If an excessive amount of nitrogen is added to the soil, this leads to changes in the flower. This is expressed in an increase in the size and brightness of the sepals, while the stamen cone is practically not formed.
Nitrogen fertilizers are applied during the first growing season. To fertilize tomatoes, prepare a mullein infusion (1:6), adding potassium sulfate (12-15 g) and double superphosphate (12-15 g) to 1 bucket of infusion. Mineral fertilizers can be replaced with ash (0.5 l).
If there is not enough mullein, an additional solution of complex mineral fertilizers is added to the soil. If the plants receive insufficient amounts of phosphorus and potassium, the fruits grow slowly, and the quality and quantity of seeds deteriorates. An urgent need for these nutrients arises during the period of fruit formation and growth. When growing tomatoes in greenhouse conditions and open ground, a sparse planting pattern is followed.
Planting and formation of plants should be carried out when the need arises, without delaying these activities. One of the common reasons why fruits do not form is the use of “own” seeds for growing tomatoes. Such plants are often affected by diseases, which causes flowers and fruits to fall off. It should be borne in mind that pesticides also have a bad effect on plants, since they impair the pollen’s ability to be fertile.