Flowers Falling Off Mature Plant

[cadolfan]

Hi I live in Sacratomato or at least I thought. I have a mature Big Boy plant. It's produced some tomatoes and there are some green mature ones on there now. I did prune it about three weeks ago. There is new growth that produced some flowers but those are now falling off. Is this plant done or will this pass and flowers eventually stay on and produce?

[KC.Sun]

I think your plant might be ok. Are there other problems with it?

For me, I lost lots of blossoms even though some set into tomatoes. From mid June until the beginning of July, I was growing in 100+ degree weather. I lost a lot of blossoms like this because the plants don't like to set fruit in this temperature.

I hear it's because the pollens dried up.

After the heat wave, my tomatoes continued to set blossoms.

[cadolfan]

Originally Posted by KC.Sun

I think your plant might be ok. Are there other problems with it?

For me, I lost lots of blossoms even though some set into tomatoes. From mid June until the beginning of July, I was growing in 100+ degree weather. I lost a lot of blossoms like this because the plants don't like to set fruit in this temperature.

I hear it's because the pollens dried up.

After the heat wave, my tomatoes continued to set blossoms.

Yeah a friend of mine said it was probably the heat. He suggested putting a fan on them LOL.

Still waiting for mine to set some new blossoms.

The only other problem I had was blossom rot. I poured a a solution of water and pelletized lime and it seemed to help.

[KC.Sun]

I'm not sure about the fan. I recall reading somewhere that it helps with air movement so tomatoes will set. I don't know if it will help in hot temps.

When your tomatoes have blossoms or tomatoes have set, you'll want to make sure you feed them.

Tomatoes are really heavy feeders.

With the BER, seems to happen to early tomatoes. you can either keep growing them for seed from what I've read or cut them off. When you cut them off the plant, you are redirecting the energy of the plant to grow, set blossoms, grow tomatoes...

[b54red]

If it is really hot then they need far more water than you might think in order to have good fruit set. The stress of losing water causes the plants to drop a lot of blooms in the heat and if there is insufficient water available then they will drop even more or all of them. I have found that regular weekly feedings of Texas Tomato Food and keeping the number of stems limited along with a heavy mulch helps with fruit set in the mid summer heat. Nothing will have them setting this time of the year like they do when it is a bit cooler though.

Another thing that can really put a whoa on your fruit set is spider mites. Some of my plants have been overwhelmed by them the last couple of weeks and the ones with the worst spider mite infestations also have the lowest or no fruit set.

Bill

[cadolfan]

Originally Posted by b54red

If it is really hot then they need far more water than you might think in order to have good fruit set. The stress of losing water causes the plants to drop a lot of blooms in the heat and if there is insufficient water available then they will drop even more or all of them. I have found that regular weekly feedings of Texas Tomato Food and keeping the number of stems limited along with a heavy mulch helps with fruit set in the mid summer heat. Nothing will have them setting this time of the year like they do when it is a bit cooler though.

Another thing that can really put a whoa on your fruit set is spider mites. Some of my plants have been overwhelmed by them the last couple of weeks and the ones with the worst spider mite infestations also have the lowest or no fruit set.

Bill

I use 1/4" circular soaker drip around the plant and water for 15 minutes each day. Do you think I need to increase this/