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Strother50
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- Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:23 pm
- Location: LaGrange
Tomatoe help
I am new here so I havent looked around everywhere yet. But, my Better Boy tomato plant has a problem with it. A few of the blooms have turned yellow, shrivel up and fall off. What is causing this?
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The Helpful Gardener
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- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
- Location: Colchester, CT
Are you talking about the petals or the whole bloom? Hey last year there was a lot of blossom end rot when old spent blooms got repeatedly wet with all the rain. I often remove the petals myself once I see fruit set just to avoid this. If the blossoms are dropping after that, it's a good thing. If before, not so good, obviously. Images help us a lot with diagnosing...
HG
HG
A tomato plant normally loses some proportion of its blossoms, not all set fruit. High temps and humid weather can inactivate the pollen, causing blossom drop. Other plant stresses can cause the plant to abort. Did you do anything to the plants recently (fertilize heavily etc), was there is shift in the weather?
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Strother50
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- Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:23 pm
- Location: LaGrange
I will post pictures tommorow. The two blooms that did it were young and were starting to open then closed and turned yellow and fell off. I have it in miracle gro soil in a pot. I got miracle gro tomato plant food yesterday, hoping it might help this. The leaves are very green and healthy. I also have it in a tomato cage and have a thick blind opener wand tied to the stalk loosely. Its being taken care of well so I have no idea why its doing this. Any help would be appreciated. This is the first time I have planted
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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The Helpful Gardener
- Mod
- Posts: 7491
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
- Location: Colchester, CT
O.K., I think I see an issue here...
You have this in a fed soil, and you are adding foods as well... if a plant gets a very nitrogen rich environment, it starts produciing LOTS for leaves, because that what nitrogen pushes. Plants that are growing lushly like that (some would say OVERLY lush) often neglect or short on flowering, as they are sure they are going to live forever, so who needs offspring? (Lilacs are famous for this). I think you are taking TOO much care of this plant, at least like the fertilizer, anyway. Are you using half rates? You should; most manufacturers recommendations are made to sell fertilizer rather than what plants actually need. Plus you will at least half the damage ammonia salt fertilizers do to soil biology, which actually helps your plant. You may have eliminated a supporting fungus or bacterial helper and that stressed the plant... Nature doesn't stress plants when it feeds them, but we do it all the time...
HG
You have this in a fed soil, and you are adding foods as well... if a plant gets a very nitrogen rich environment, it starts produciing LOTS for leaves, because that what nitrogen pushes. Plants that are growing lushly like that (some would say OVERLY lush) often neglect or short on flowering, as they are sure they are going to live forever, so who needs offspring? (Lilacs are famous for this). I think you are taking TOO much care of this plant, at least like the fertilizer, anyway. Are you using half rates? You should; most manufacturers recommendations are made to sell fertilizer rather than what plants actually need. Plus you will at least half the damage ammonia salt fertilizers do to soil biology, which actually helps your plant. You may have eliminated a supporting fungus or bacterial helper and that stressed the plant... Nature doesn't stress plants when it feeds them, but we do it all the time...
HG