tomato blossoms drying up

15 years ago

My tomato plant has produced three (3) tomatoes but then the rest of the blossoms just turned yellow and dried up without producing any fruit. What is wrong? The plant is in a five (5) gallon bucket with drain holes in the bottom.

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Comments (6)

reaverg
15 years ago
From what I've heard heat bakes the pollen and renders it useless. Has it been hot and humid?

Mine are bursting into flames on the vine so keep your head up. :D
tomahtohs
15 years ago
Usually, Flowers fail to set fruit because of extreme temperatures. If it's too cold, the pollen dies and doesn't correctly fertilize the ovary. If it's too warm, the pollen clumps and doesn't fall on to the stigma easily. If you've been having high and low temperatures, they may be to blame.
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It will make normal blossoms without you having to do anything...the fused "mega blooms" are more of an aberration, though some varieties are more prone to produce them. It doesn't mean your plant is sick, just some environmental or genetic hiccup at the time the bud formed. I like seeing them from time to time. The fruit that develops is just as edible and tasty as other fruits, just looks gnarly. So, cut it off if you don't want the fruit, or keep it if you do. The plant won't care either way! :) It's not really an issue unless you need "pretty" fruits for market or something.
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carolyn137
15 years ago
If it's too warm, the pollen clumps and doesn't fall on to the stigma easily. If you've been having high and low temperatures, they may be to blame.

******

High temps don't cause pollen to clump, it's high humidity that does that and clumped pollen is then much less effective in enabling self pollenization.

Offrel, high sustained temps above about 85F to higher can cause pollen to become what's called denatured, meaning it's inactive.

And high sustained humidity can cause pollen clumping as I just mentioed.

And if night temps are above about 70F then pollenization doesn't occur either.

The low temp restriction I don't think would be that common for most of us at this time of the year.

The blossom cycle is about three weeks and since blossom formation on a plant is asynchronous when high temps fall and/or humidity falls, then you should start seeing fruit set.

Shaking plants or vibrating blossoms is NOT going to work unless pollen is viable.

And the product Blossom Set was devised to be used in those areas where the Springs are very cool, such as the PNW, and it does help by inducing what's called parthenocarpy, which means fruit development in the absence of fertilization of the ovules in the tomato ovary by the germ tube formed by pollen.

Carolyn
tomahtohs
15 years ago
Geez, Carolyn, you sure can thoroughly answer a question. How in the world do you know so much?
tomatojoa
15 years ago
Thanks, Carolyn, you always tell us all just exactly what we need to know.

You mention high sustained temps and my question is how long is "sustained"? An afternoon (~ 4 hours), or 10 hrs, 24 hrs, 72 hrs,... ? Thanks, JoAnne
tylenol
15 years ago
tomahtohs,

If you click on Carolyn's "My Page", you'll see a very nice intro from her.

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tomato blossoms drying up

Comments (6)

reaverg

tomahtohs

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carolyn137

tomahtohs

tomatojoa

tylenol

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