What proportion of the tress should set fruit?

[emcd124]

I've read before about how with large variety tomatoes they intentionally make more flowers but after they set three fruits on a tress the other flowers abort. I'm wondering if there is something like that with cherry tomatoes too. In particular I have a blondkopfchen and a reisenstraube that both set a gazillion flowers, but it seems visually like no more than one in five sets fruit. I'm wondering how much I can blame that on low pollinators in my neighborhood (and therefore how much I could fix by either shaking the trusses or whatever the toothbrush method is).

Any rules of thumb out there? Advice?

[NarnianGarden]

That's interesting info on the 'three fruit per fruss' rule. I'm glad I have seen more than that in my BK trusses... even though my plants are somewhat puny and miserable compared to some handsome greenhouse trees

My guess is that there just isn't enough energy and nutrients for all to develop. I hate to see that in my cherry tomato plant... It is the end of its life cycle and giving it all to the existing fruits. So many dead flowers... ah well.

[WVTomatoMan]

Three on a truss is simply not true. I have a Trees Bottom Yellow with 4 on it. I've had a Bonny Best with 9 on a truss. Etc. Cherries should set fruit for most blooms assuming good conditions. Take a look at the attached pic - it's a SuperSweet 100.

Randy

Clarification: For large fruited varieties 3 to 5 tomatoes per cluster is the norm. 3 is most common, occassionally there will be 4, rarely will there be 5, but it does happen. It all depends on the variety, growing conditions, etc.

[zipcode]

There are two types of multiflora from what I can tell. The old style, like riesentraube that can make more than a thousand flowers on a truss, sometimes have leaves in it, and seems to branch out without any rule. And a new style, that is probably a newer gene discovered and used in breeding as I see it on new hybrids (supersweets, and many others) and some other new varieties that have less flowers and neatly splitting long trusses that all usually set.
I think the first type simply makes flowers, and produces as much as the plant thinks it can handle. And the second type makes as many flowers as it thinks it will handle. Something like that.

[WVTomatoMan]

Reisenstraube puts out a lot more flowers than there is fruit set (hundreds of flowers for 20-40 fruit set), Blondkopfchen a little less so (i.e a bit higher ratio). My guess would be that your results are in the ball park for normal.

What I'm stuck on is the no more than 3 fruits per cluster for large fruited myth and that different varieties behave differently as zipcode suggested.

I'm attaching some pictures from my garden. There is a Purple Dog Creek (large beefsteak) with 4 tomatoes on a cluster, Trees Bottom Yellow with 5 tomatoes on a cluster (arguably on is quite large and one is quite small) and 8 on a cluster of a medium sized variety. Also, in her book 100 Heirlooms for the American garden Carolyn mentions getting 3 to 5 per cluster for Zogola and Sandul Moldovan.

Randy

p.s. BTW, for some large fruited varieties 2 per cluster is the norm.