blossom-set spray ???

[manyplews]

Per my calendar,we planted our garden on May 31.In this area that i live,it pays to wait until after the last full moon in May because of the frequency of late frosts.
So that makes 58 days so far.
Looks like it will be 10-14 more days until the main crop of tomatoes are ripe.
I noticed that there seems to be fewer green tomatoes on the vines than normal.Probably due to the lousy,wet weather
the last 40 days or so,and the full week of 90 degree weather we had last week.
I used to use a Blossom Set spray when tomato pollination seemed poor or there seemed to be fewer honey bees to pollinate the garden.
I got my old supply out today and used it on about half of our plants.It's about 10 years old so I was a little leary of using it on
all my plants.
The first blossom set spray I used about 25 years ago,came in a small pressurized spray can.
Have you folks ever used Blossom Set spray?
ron

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by manyplews

Per my calendar,we planted our garden on May 31.In this area that i live,it pays to wait until after the last full moon in May because of the frequency of late frosts.
So that makes 58 days so far.
Looks like it will be 10-14 more days until the main crop of tomatoes are ripe.
I noticed that there seems to be fewer green tomatoes on the vines than normal.Probably due to the lousy,wet weather
the last 40 days or so,and the full week of 90 degree weather we had last week.
I used to use a Blossom Set spray when tomato pollination seemed poor or there seemed to be fewer honey bees to pollinate the garden.
I got my old supply out today and used it on about half of our plants.It's about 10 years old so I was a little leary of using it on
all my plants.
The first blossom set spray I used about 25 years ago,came in a small pressurized spray can.
Have you folks ever used Blossom Set spray?
ron

Blossom Set spray was devised to be used in areas where Springs are cool, such as the PNW.

Where temps are OK for pollenization it does nothing.

But what it does do is to induce parthenocarpic fruits that have few to no seeds and fruits can be very misformed.

There are different brand names of it but all contain a tomato hormone, the most common being IAA ( indole acetic acid)

Lastly, insect pollinators are not necessary to result in fruit formation, since self pollenization occurs most of the time.

Hope that helps.

Carolyn

Carolyn

[tlintx]

Have you tried the toothbrush/sonicator method? Lots of people swear by it.

[manyplews]

Carolyn,

I wasn't aware of much of what you told me.
Thank you!

tlintx,
I assume you are referring to vibrating the blossoms?

[tlintx]

Yep. It's known as "the toothbrush thing" but I use an electric razor, without the head, of course!


Tl