major blossom drop (not rot) help

18 years ago

Hi All

Live in San Fernando Valley , so cal. I have 5 tomato plants of various heirloom, det. indet, hybrid. All are losing over 1/2 blossom. I have a few fruits which set a bout a month ago. I know hight temps cause blossom drop..but It is definitley not over 90 continously ( it was a few days last month)

In fact, if you live in the area, you know we have had June gloom with breaking to great weather in afternoon. I s the june gloom ( hazy cloud coverage) causing the drop. They re breaking off at the blossom stem...about 1/2 way.

What can i do!! I have big beautiful plants ( the best ever) with blossims falling by the hour)

I have used the blossom set spray before it doesnt work.

Anyone else having this problem in our geographic area? What do we do...

thanks

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Comments (16)

goddessemer6
18 years ago
Perhaps it is a pollination issue? Have you tried vibrating your maters? :) I use an electric toothbrush to gently vibrate the whole plant and help with fruit set.
Heatherz5
18 years ago
I have the exact same thing going on with my tomatoes. I was going to post also. My plant has all kinds of flowers but the stem above the blossom turns brown and the entire thing falls off. We have had unusually dry hot (90+) weather here in the Midwest for a few weeks. Is this the cause of what is going on? We finally got some rain the past few days. Hope it snaps out of it.

Heather
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Cheflara, I've gardened for 34 years and have probably done more reading on this "hobby" than anything else in my life. Among the contributing factors to BER are uneven watering, fluctuations in temperature, and lack of calcium in the tomatoes themselves. (Adding some to soil rarely helps, cause it's very plentiful in most soils.) There is are some simple things you can do to help reduce the chances of BER, though as some have mentioned, it usually goes away by itself as the season progresses. One thing is to put a good 3 or 4 inches of grass clippings on top of the containers. Having been to New York City many times, I know there are areas where grass clipings aren't easy to come by. But using them has so many benefits, it would be worth a little trouble to get some, like taking some boxes along the next time you visit the burbs? The clippings will: 1. Keep the soil moister, reducing "uneven" water conditions. 2, Keep the soil cooler, up to 50 degreees on the surface on hot days. 3. Provide all the nutrients your tomatoes need. Chemical fertilzers simply are not as good, plus they cost money. The grass clippings provide "a balanced meal," not too much of one nutrient and not enough of another. The chances your tomatoes will get the calcium they need will be better. If your plants are getting all-day sun, you might also think of leaning something against the pots to shade them from the hot afternoon sun. Remember, only the plants need sun, not the pots. Some kinds of materials can get hot enough to cook roots touching the inside of the pots. This also helps reduce fluctuations in temperature. And finally, if you don't have saucers or something under the pots to catch water, it would be very beneficial to get some. What happens with potted plants is that the soil dries out and shrinks. That creates a space between the soil and the sides of the pot. You water, see water running out the bottom, and think the soil has been wet. But the majority of the root ball is still bone dry. If you have a saucer under the pots, water collects there and then is slowly drawn up into the rootball by capillary action. I've been suggesting for years that drainage holes NOT be put on the bottom of containers. They should be about 2 to 4 inches up the sides, depending on the size pot. And lo and behold, a friend of mine who lives in another city recently bought a potted dwarf lemon tree. She e-mailed me and asked why the drainage holes Were Up the Sides? It's possible someone came up with this independently, but I think I have "dibs" on it? All of the above will just make General Conditions for your maters better. A healhtier plant is less likely to have problems of any kind.
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Let's call it "transpiration stress" due to quite extreme temperature changes that results in problems with already slow calcium fluctuations. Nutrient balance may in fact only play a minor role in that/this case. Not sure about Daniel's recommendation of lowering the nutrient concentration, as this case is a bit special. If you go by the book, with lower temperatures and because of less transpiration - higher nutrient concentrations are actually recommended. I'd rather (preferably) try to "equalise" the temperature changes somehow. PS: you haven't mentioned your EC, or have I missed it... and you say 2% of calcium but that is unfortunately vague, as it could be expressed in CaO or in elemental Ca. As a "stand alone" info, 2% doesn't really say much. As Daniel pointed out the ratio of 1:2 to K, you would also have to consider if it is K and not KO2 you'd compare with Ca. A bit complicated I know, but that's the drill as you want to find out real figures before detecting a disproportion. ;-) @Joe, well I am quite productive (some may call it rather hyperactive and intrusive ;-) but as you can't have it all, I am extremely disorganised and would have to search for them one by one like anyone else...
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As Susan said, BER is much more complex than scientists once believed. Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, they thought it was simply that the soil was lacking in calcium and that adding calcium to the soil would stop BER. Well, it didn't. Many years of research later, they now know that BER is related to how a plant's vascular system takes up calcium and disperses it through the plant. BER is more common earlier in the season when the tomato plants' root system and vascular system are relatively immature and can only handle so much water at one time and can only transport so much calcium at one time. That's why plants seem to grow out of it....because the root systems and vascular systems get bigger and stronger. Essentially, when you have a plant carrying tomatoes, both the plant and the fruit need the calcium. However, since survival of the plant is more important than the survival of any given fruit, calcium will leave the tomatoes and go back into the plant when the plant needs calcium and isn't picking up/circulating enough via its root system/vascular system. When that calcium leaves the fruit, the calcium deprived areas, which are those the greatest distance from the stem--hence, the blossom end--lose their calcium and the tissue develops BER. BER is most common on younger plants carrying a heavy load of fruit. It is also common on plants pushed too hard to grow too much too fast via the application of high-nitrogen fertilizers. This occurs because the high nitrogen helps the plant develop more green foliage than the root system can easily support. BER also occurs during periods of uneven watering, and too much water contributes to it just as much as too little. Those of you who had heavy rainfall recently are just at the mercy of the rainfall in this case. Usually, once the plant matures a little more and has a stronger vascular system, you won't see BER any more as long as you maintain even soil moisture and don't overfertilize. BER is physiological in origin, so it isn't a disease and it doesn't spread, although if conditions are right for it to develop on one plant, it often will develop on other plants too.
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Put epsom salts around your tomatoes when you plant them and your Bossom end rot is gone regardless of what the actual cause is . I suspect that the calcium up take , which in turn provides further nutrients , is upset because of inconsistant moisture . Too much , then not enough , Etc.Cool and damp. I am not a chemist so I cant argue the potassium/ phosphorus over use as a cause.However i use soft rock phosphate , bone meal , fish inards , banana rich compost greensand and wood ashes. The ph is about6.5-6.8.The epsom salts makes the difference. About a half tablespoon per plant in a ring about 3 inches out from the stem.I have not had a BER tomato in years . I have grown on both sand and clay. Same problem , same treatment , same results.I use the same type salts that i soak my feet in Happy Matering johnny
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carolyn137
18 years ago
It's not just hot weather that can casue blossom drop.

Your JUne GLoom conditions with the fogs and mists casue what's caused pollen clumping with the high humidity which makes pollination less effective.

Carolyn
linnaeussimkin
18 years ago
I live in Pomona, and have the same problem with a couple of the heirloom varieties. The Home Depot types (Lemon Boy, Roma, Betterboy, etc) do not have the blosson drop. The weather is warming up this week, and I hope that this cures the problem, because I am losing a LOT of blossoms.
I am watering every 3 days, any feedback? Thanks in advance...
loneranger
18 years ago
If the plants otherwise look healthy, they'll have plenty of blooms before the growing season is over. I had a blossom drop problem last year, and the problem resolved itself. I wouldn't really worry about it.
jzilli3
18 years ago
Same deal down here in Oceanside, although lately we've all had lots of sun. Here's my scorecard to date:
Brandywine (Amish) Lots of flowers/drops 2 fruit
Big Zach Lots of flowers/drops 1 fruit(deformed)
Heirloom Cherry variety Lots of flowers and all set. (50?
Costrolee Lots of flowers 1 fruit
Carmelo Every single flower sets to fruit. Definitely going with tons of Carmelo next year.
My wife was wondering what I was doing with the Sonic Care in the garden the other day. (Kidding)
Gail1205
18 years ago
I have the same thing happening in Virginia. I just built raised beds because we have clay soil. I filled the beds with top soil and manure. Approximately 3 bags of top soil to 1 bag of manure. Someone told me that I may have too much fertilizer and that is burning my herbs and tomatoes. That I should try to add more soil to reduce the fertilizer ratio. Does anyone know if that is the problem? There are some tomatoes but a lot of the blooms are brown as opposed to yellow and break off.

Thanks
irish_rose_grower
18 years ago
Same thing happening in New york. Last year I had the problem with blossom rot, this year it's blossom drop. I lost all my tomatoes last year. If I don't get a crop that's edible this year, I'm just going to stop and beg my neighbors for some of their harvest.

Maureen
elkski
18 years ago
I have the same thing here in utah...I really haven't seen many bees this year? Could that be a problem..I haven't applied fertilizer since I turned the beds and planted april 20th. I may have over watered..It has also been windy (almost to much for bees)and dry air. I only water the soil.
azkayla
18 years ago
Hi sushiqueen,

I posted a reply to a thread entitled "tiny whitish bugs". It's about thrips, a very tiny insect which can cause a tremendous amount of blossom drop! They are so small that you could easily overlook them, even with a substantial infestation. But once you do recognize them, believe me, you'll see them! You might want to check my post on that thread for some additional info. Western Flower Thrips are common in our part of the country (Most prevalent west of the Mississippi). In fact, commercial vegetable growers in the west suffer terrible losses in some years to thrips, so our little home gardens are certainly not exempt. I hope it's just your weather causing your blossom drop, because frankly thrips are a pain!

Good Luck!
AZ Kayla
lagraywt
18 years ago
Interesting reading here. Misery loves company. I'm having the same problem in coastal Massachusetts with blossom drop and it's with my heirlooms like Giant Belgian and German Johnson (potato leaf). The Better Boys are just fine. The past week of nonstop rain and fog won't help I guess.

Leslie
elkski
18 years ago
YEs I do have blossom drop and was out inspecting my 16 maters this am and caught one suspect to look under the 20x.. It had wings and 2 black eyes.
KikibooCRZ
18 years ago
I am having the same problem here in se VA only it's with my peppers. I have sent off specimens to the county extension office but have yet to hear back. I hope i get some peppers this year. Last year they did awesome. Just thought I would let ya'll know that you weren't the only ones.
Ki
jzilli3
18 years ago
Having verbally accused my backyard heirloom gang as being nothing more than a bunch of ornamental flowering bushes that are littering the premises, (except the Carmelo), they have taken my point seriously, and have responded in kind. Now, most everything is setting to fruit. Either that they have taken note of my "second string" back up Costoluto's, that have just started flowering and fruiting, and realized the handwritting is on the fence, so to speak. Good luck to all of you......
deneciepie
14 years ago
Yup, I planted all Heirlooms and have the same problem. Good set during the occasional periods when its between 60-90 degrees. Otherwise zip. Is it just the "heirloom" toms that are behaving this way? I have 5-6 foot tall bushes with not much to show for it. BTW I put these in in late March and April here in Tracy, usually thats late enough that they take right off, but this years' weather had them in a sulk for several weeks.
tropicalbeachgrl
10 years ago
I came here hoping for a solution to my drop (rot?) issue!! I live in Fort Wayne, IN. Planted all Sun brand this year; Rutgers has already produced a couple of beautiful fruits for me. Heirloom Black Krim is coming along, with cracks I think due to the uneven weather here it's either hot sun or a deluge. But I have two 5' Heirloom Aunt Ruby's German Green that are flowering then nothing. Flowers turn brown and fall off without any fruit. Neighbor also has two German Green that are doing the same thing.

major blossom drop (not rot) help

Comments (16)

goddessemer6

Heatherz5

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