pink brandywine blooms dropping

[tnkrer]

I have this earthtainer that started vigorously and then slowed down. (It has one early girl and one brandywine). heat stress or herbicide drift have been proposed as causes. Last couple of days, I am seeing the blooms on the brandywine dropping. Here is the picture of the brandywine truss



and the fallen bloom



Luckily I have a second brandywine, which is not showing this problem. (It did drop one bloom, but it was megabloom, so I suppose that was expected)

Is the bloom drop consistent with heat stress or herbicide drift? Or is it something else? Early girl in the same container has slowed down in growth, but is at least setting fruit (3 decent sized tomatoes, 8 blueberry sized ones)

[Patihum]

If it was herbicide damage you'd be seeing curling of the leaves, stems etc. If the temp is over or pushing ninety it could be heat stress.

[b54red]

I have noticed over the years that when the temperature starts getting up near 90 or above the large pink beefsteak type tomatoes tend to drop more blooms than most others. If they ever get the least bit dry in the high temps the blooms fall off very quickly so you might want to give it some extra water while it is blooming.

Bill

[TightenUp]

i've noticed the large pink beefsteaks are just tougher to get started. last season it was my brandywine from croatia. i've never witnessed so much blossom drop. this year its starting on my german giant. the 1st set of flowers is half gone already. stump of the world is stingy and doesnt have developed flowers yet.

carbon and kimberley are right next to these and have set fruit. also some cherries have set so far

i have about 10 more varieties that are at the flowering stage now so i'll see how the reds, purples, and yellows do over the next few days.

fyi i had the toothbrush going last season on a daily basis and it just didnt help the brandywine. i did load up on kelloggs breakfast and i think the toothbrush helped.

[b54red]

What are you fertilizing them with? I started using Texas Tomato Food this year and have had the best fruit set in nearly 40 years of growing tomatoes. I am feeding the plants every week drenching the soil or the container with a slightly weaker solution than recommended. That way I can get my watering and fertilizing done at the same time. If it is hot and dry I have to water in between fertilizing.

Bill

[TightenUp]

i must admit the area i'm dropping blossoms is a diff garden than last year. however i had a soil test by rutgers and i followed their recommendations to a "T". everything should be close to optimum for tomatoes at this point.

i've read good things about the TTF but for containers i had fantastic results with azomite, happy frog tomato and veg granular ferts, and biobizz biogrow. i had leftovers from last season so i'm sticking with it for now.

you're using the TTF(texas tomato food) on your soil grown tomatoes as well as containers?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

i must admit the area i'm dropping blossoms is a diff garden than last year. however i had a soil test by rutgers and i followed their recommendations to a "T". everything should be close to optimum for tomatoes at this point.

i've read good things about the TTF but for containers i had fantastic results with azomite, happy frog tomato and veg granular ferts, and biobizz biogrow. i had leftovers from last season so i'm sticking with it for now.

you're using the TTF(texas tomato food) on your soil grown tomatoes as well as containers?

Yes, I'm using it on all of my tomatoes. I'm not a big fan of container growing because I sometimes forget to water and in this heat that just means the plants drop most of their blooms. I just use some old 5 gallon buckets with holes in the bottom and don't have self watering containers which would be a big help during hot days like the last few have been. I also had herbicide drift hit most of my container plants and they suffered for about 3 weeks but are now recovering nicely and setting fruit again despite the heat.

Bill

[pinklady5]

Can it be from the all the rain we are having here on the east coast? I'm experiencing some blossom drop as well.

[leshachikha]

Add me to the list of people getting some blossom drop. I am thinking (hoping) that it's a combination of a few blazing hot days followed by a ton of a rain. We really haven't had a nice stretch of warm but sub-90 and dry days all spring.

[tnkrer]

b54red - I am fertilizing with tomato tone fert strip and weekly foliage pro (1/2 tsp per gallon) Read about TTF just recently on this forum. I think I am all set for couple of years with the amount of liquid fert I have.

pinklady, leshachikha .. We have had too much rain. I had planted some things in ground and they are all dying since the soil is not draining fast enough. 8 inches in last 2 weeks. So that could be the reason. (Though my plants in the front are not dropping blossoms)

So right now I am blaming herbicide damage. Whatever blooms formed during that time are not flowering well and dying. (I got couple of blooms drop on the early girl as well on one of the trusses). The plants seem to have recovered and are growing again and leaves are not curled anymore. The problem is, brandywine seems to be very stingy with its flower trusses, At the moment, I had only one flower truss on it and it's lost. (There is one more, but it's just very small group of indistinguishable buds)

[TightenUp]

do you have any pics showing herbicide damage?

[tnkrer]

I don't have pictures from when it looked worst. 3-4 days after that, it looked like this



Right now .. All leaves have perked up.

[TightenUp]

which did your plant mostly resemble? pic 1 or pic 2?

or neither of course

[tnkrer]

They had not curled inside like picture 1. They had curled outside, but not as badly as picture 2. The leaves in picture 2 look shriveled. I had lifeless, curling leaves.

[wally mcgee]

I was having a lot of blossom drop on my German Pink tomatoes in my hoop house. The plants looked great with a lot of blossoms, but they were not setting fruit. I bought some blossom set spray to try and sprayed a select few to compare to the others. Nothing. I had the bright idea this spring to use the frost blanket I used to cover my winter greens as a shade cloth. Anyway, I think they were not setting fruit due to a wet cool spring without enough sun. I rolled up the shade cloth and they set fruit. More on the un-sprayed plants that were pollinated with an electric tooth brush.

I am no expert, just love to garden and nature teaches something new each year.