Too much fertilizer or heat that has stunted growth

[amideutch]

Here is a picture of 3 plants on my fence line taken 2 days ago. These containers are 5-7 gal in size. From left to right you have Kolb Pink, Purple Haze and Cowlick's Pink Brandywine.
The first container on the left is Dark Blue which you can see at the top. I bought these containers at a super price. What I did is put double sided carpet tape around the top and bottom and got sheet styrofoam and wrapped it around the pot. So I don't have to worry about the pot/aggregate heating up. I planted the plants 29-30 May, 2 weeks later got hit by a hail storm and the first 2 weeks of July had Temperatures in the mid 90's every day with no fruit set. And here they are 3 Aug 2010. I've grown KBX in the ground and in a 26 quart styrofoam ice chest with no difference in size and better production in the ice chest. Ami

[TomatoDon]

Years ago when I had a nursery I had a source for the flexible sheet styrofoam like you are using and I would wrap that, sometimes two layers, around my large black plastic containers and it made a huge difference. I haven't seen any insulation like that in a long time. I'm glad to know it's still available. Now...does anyone in the US know where to find it?

Thanks Ami.

DS
(Edit) At first glance I would have guessed those containers to be 15 gallon and up. When I think of a 5 gallon container I think of these white pails (buckets) we see at paint and hardware stores. Those are really on the minimum side of what I think I could grow with here in the mid south. I've heard people say they grew much better in containers than the natural earth, as you mentioned about the KBX and the styrofoam container. I've always wondered if people dug a hole the exact size of the container and used the exact soil mix, what the results would be. I'm guessing it would be practically equal. In my experience the soil is usually much better in containers because we have total control over it and usually only put in the good stuff. The only trouble I have, from a real-world perspective, on containers is the watering. I can skip a few days growing in the ground and Mother Nature will provide enough moisture to keep the plants going. Doing that with containers is sure disaster.

[Fred in Maine]

Tim, you are not alone. And it is not just container gardeners who are struggling with the debilitating affects of this mutant heat. I am having the same experience in Maine. Heat stress has severely stunted the growth of my plants. The heat has also caused very poor fruit set.

I’ve been building up the quality of the soil in my raised beds for years. This year’s soil test results were excellent for NPK and micro nutrients as well as organic matter, soil texture, CEC, etc. so I know it is not the soil. It must be this unrelenting blast-furnace heat.

I have 46 different trusted varieties planted in good sun and ideal soil. I’ve been meticulous about watering properly. Yet, after 10 weeks of growth, plants that would normally be 5-6 feet tall and loaded with fruit are only 2-3 feet tall and barely producing. Even the cherries!!! For example, Black Cherry is a mere 2 feet tall with a total of 4-5 tomatoes. All the Black Cherry tomatoes were picked a few days ago and there ain't no sign of another mater nor single flower in this plant's dismal future. It's done, finished, out of steam, can't take it no more.

Size of fruit has also been affected. Not just kinda, sorta smaller, but circus freak Tom Thumb smaller. Costoluto Genevese, normally beautifully ribbed beefsteaks in my garden, are slightly larger than warped red golf balls. The same phenomenom is present in many (not all) of my other varieties. Tiny plants with tiny tomatoes and dang few fruit on each plant.

Same trusted varieties as past years. Same trusted soil. The only difference has been this sledge-hammer heat.

[Timmah!]

Originally Posted by amideutch

If you are using the new Tomato Tone 4-7-10 I would say the plants are not getting enough nitrogen which is needed for the growth phase.

4-7-10 is the old formulation; 3-4-6 is the new formulation.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[amideutch]

Thanks Timmah. So the new Tomato Tone formula has even less nitrogen.

I went with a new aggregate this year per Raybo's suggestion for my containers. I went to a 3-1-1 of White Peat, Bark fines and Perlite. I found that water retention with this new mix was better than my old mix of Rhododendron mix and perlite.

The sheet styrofoam is quite common here in Germany as it is used as a base for laminate flooring which is very popular over here. Ami

[TimTom]

Originally Posted by Fred in Maine

Tim, you are not alone. And it is not just container gardeners who are struggling with the debilitating affects of this mutant heat. I am having the same experience in Maine. Heat stress has severely stunted the growth of my plants. The heat has also caused very poor fruit set.

I’ve been building up the quality of the soil in my raised beds for years. This year’s soil test results were excellent for NPK and micro nutrients as well as organic matter, soil texture, CEC, etc. so I know it is not the soil. It must be this unrelenting blast-furnace heat.

I have 46 different trusted varieties planted in good sun and ideal soil. I’ve been meticulous about watering properly. Yet, after 10 weeks of growth, plants that would normally be 5-6 feet tall and loaded with fruit are only 2-3 feet tall and barely producing. Even the cherries!!! For example, Black Cherry is a mere 2 feet tall with a total of 4-5 tomatoes. All the Black Cherry tomatoes were picked a few days ago and there ain't no sign of another mater nor single flower in this plant's dismal future. It's done, finished, out of steam, can't take it no more.

Size of fruit has also been affected. Not just kinda, sorta smaller, but circus freak Tom Thumb smaller. Costoluto Genevese, normally beautifully ribbed beefsteaks in my garden, are slightly larger than warped red golf balls. The same phenomenom is present in many (not all) of my other varieties. Tiny plants with tiny tomatoes and dang few fruit on each plant.

Same trusted varieties as past years. Same trusted soil. The only difference has been this sledge-hammer heat.

Fred......This is exactly what is happening here in southern mass.....My mortgage lifters are the size of cherry toms....RIPE!!!!! In my experience this is the first with such stunted growth. I have transplanted some in much larger containers and cooler temps should be coming so hopefully I can salvage some and get a little crop. Otherwise I'll have to resort to farmers markets which as of last weekend had a few heirlooms at $5.99 a pound!!!

[dice]

My guess would be that the soil in the containers with the small
plants lacks large pore air space and holds water unusually well.

I potted up some plants in containers about that size this spring,
with the bottoms either removed entirely or with large holes
drilled, so that the plants can root through them into the
ground below. I have two rows of 5, and in each row one plant
is doing well, while all of the others are stunted, as you describe.
Two different varieties.

In the container where the plant is doing well, the container mix
is a mixture of last year's mix with fine sand and silt screened
out, peat moss, compost, "Steer Manure Blend" (HD), and
perlite, in about equal proportions. In the containers where the
plant is stunted, I had run out of everything but the "Steer
Manure Blend" and perlite, so that's all that those have, 2/3
Steer Manure Blend and 1/3 perlite.

All have the same amendments otherwise: 2 handfuls of
gypsum, handful of greensand, tablespoon of epsom salt
(magnesium sulfate), 1/2 cup of wood ash, handful of 5-10-10,
1/2 handful of Garden Tone (5-3-3). All were watered in at
transplant time with dissolved fish emulsion, liquid kelp,
and worm casting tea.

I check with a moisture meter, too, before watering. The
obvious difference is that in the containers where the plants
are doing well, it dries from the wet range to the dry range
in about 2 days in sunny weather (75-80F), and the moisture
meter easily penetrates the container mix with little force. In
the small containers where the plants are stunted, it takes
3 weeks of the same weather for the moisture level to get from
the wet range to the top of the dry range, and the stuff chunks
up, so that you have to force the moisture meter down through
it. pH on all of them is within the recommended range for
tomatoes (between 6.5 and 7.0).

My conclusion is that the Steer Manure Blend and perlite
sets to kind of a hard chunk that is difficult to root through,
lacks large pore air space as a result, and it holds water
better than the plants prefer. (I have used Steer Manure
Blend from the same vendor before as a container mix
without the same problems, so its characteristics vary some
from one year to the next. I have also tried adding more
nitrogen on a couple of test plants from the stunted ones,
no effect. This year the Steer Manure Blend needed the peat
moss, particularly, to loosen it up and add large pore air space
to it. Something like bark fines would probably have worked,
too, although the effect on nitrogen demand would be
different. Compost is always a good choice for this, but it
is more expensive than peat or bark fines unless you have
a big pile of it at home that you made yourself. If I had used
1/2 perlite and 1/2 steer manure blend, that might have worked,
too.)

So, in summary, I doubt that it is fertilizer, per your description,
or watering, since you are testing that with a moisture meter.
I would guess that your container mix simply has too much fine
matter and lacks enough large pore air space for the roots to be
happy. It was probably ok in the beginning but has settled or
become compacted by rain and watering.

edit: It could be just the heat, too, but a lot of people grow
full-size plants with full-size fruit in some places that are
always as hot in the summer as your summer is this year.
So there is more than one possibility, but fertilizer and water
are probably not it in your case.

[Timmah!]

I mixed in alot of pine bark mulch (not composted) into the raised bed & the plants are more vigorous than the ones planted into the crider soil (read clay) mixed with a smaller amount of pine bark. The bark is using alot of nitrogen, I have to add more than I normally would to keep the plants happy. I'm assuming the nitrogen is being returned as the decomposition takes place.

[TimTom]

Dice,

I believe your on to something with the soil. 2 Days ago when I tranplanted to larger pots the root structures were compacted and dense. There was no room to move or breath for them.....Next year I will be adding something to help with this issue such a pine back mulch.

Thanks to all for the help....

[dice]

The bacteria digesting the pine bark would be using up the extra
nitrogen and turning the pine bark into humus (a good thing to
have in your soil; it binds to nutrients that might otherwise form
insoluble compounds in the soil, keeping them available to
plants, and it holds water well).

In a container, one can use leaf mold to loosen up a container
mix, too. Like compost, it breaks down and loses its structure
pretty fast in warm, moist conditions, so I would not count on it
to loosen up the soil or container mix for more than one season.
That is the sort of thing that falls out into the wheelbarrow when
I screen last year's container mix with a window screen before
mixing new stuff into it and reusing it, organic matter decayed
to silt.

In undisturbed (no-till) or thickly mulched ground, this
breakdown of organic matter to silt is not the same liability
that it is in container mix, because fungi form soil aggregates,
binding smaller particles of organic matter and clay into
larger "aggregations" that restore large pore air space
to the soil. And it is still available to earthworms as food.

[panhandler]

I grow in 20 gal. containers in ungodly awful heat and humidity. I'm no expert, but I've got a nightshade green thumb. This is my recommendation. Cut out the fertilizer, especially the nitrogen. I graduate the nitrogen at the flower phase and I'm a skeptic about continual fertilizaton after they fruit.

[dice]

I posted the URL below to another thread where soilless mix in
a raised bed came up in the discussion, but the comments on
the necessity of air space in the soil and the characteristics of
sand, clay, and silt sort of apply here, too:

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%2...dments%202.pdf

A longer document that is a more-or-less comprehensive
discussion of how to manage the characteristics of container
mix (written for the Florida greenhouse industry):

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/cn004

The point is that containers with compressed soils cannot
remake their own air space the way that clay loam soils
can if thickly mulched. They simply do not have all of the
ingredients of soil aggregation, usually lack earthworms,
and so on. We (or a container mix manufacturer) have to
be responsible for maintaining that air space ourselves
if we want our plants to thrive. It is a tricky balance between
a container mix that has enough air space for the roots to
thrive and a container mix that holds enough water so that
we do not have to water them three times a day to keep a
large tomato plant hydrated in hot weather.

[French-Connection]

5 gallon pots sounds plenty big enough, and there is no way I would try to replant a large tomato plant. Commercial growers manage 3 plants in a grow bag, but they feed at every watering. So to me it sounds like not enough feed. Do not over water pots in one go as this washes out the fertilizers, a little and offen is the best, keeping the compost always moist.
Plants do need plenty Potash for fruit production. To much nitrogen will cause more foliar growth.
You could also try nipping out the tips of a few shoots. But I will probably get shot for saying that on your side of the pond!.

[Milan HP]

Originally Posted by TimTom

Hello,

Just about all of my toms this year have stunted growth. Most varieties are ripening and the sizes 1/4 of what it should be. All are in pots and all have had applications of TomatoTone weekly. As many of you are aware the heat in the Northeast has been above average this season.

Any thoughts on the cause of stunted growth?

Thanks

Tim

I also grow toms in containers. Actually 4-gallon ones. They are always smaller than the same varieties I grow in the garden. Especially the fruits. I take that for granted.
There is one thing that probably caused the trouble: the heat. I am not familiar with the fertilizer you used, but I'd say fertilizing isn't the culprit. Unfortunately, toms can only draw on the minerals fully when the temperature of the soil is under about 30°C. If it's higher the roots partly lose their ability to absorb nutrients no matter if they are fertilized or not. BER is usually the first symptom, but other elements including nitrogen follow. I have black containers, which is a great advantage in spring but a problem if the summer is extremely hot. So my solution to the problem is outer insulation with polystyrene or any suchlike material. And of course, I protect the containers from direct sunshine. I also try to water them before the hottest part of the day. Anything that keeps the temperature down at a reasonable level.

Massachusetts is 8 parallels farther down south than here. So the heat can definitely be worse.
Milan HP