Tomato Pollination Woes

[so lucky]

I don't remember ever having this problem with indeterminate tomatoes before. My Big Beef in particular had a nice first crop, but out of three plants, I have only found two tomatoes under 2" in diameter. There just aren't any new ones coming on. Lots of blooms, but they wither and die. I think it must be the hot nights we've had, but there were a couple cool nights in there. You'd think there'd be something! I do have lots of bees, so I don't think that is the problem.
The Kellog's Breakfast isn't much better.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are probably right, the hot nights. Since you had a good early crop it doesn't sound like nutrition. Tomatoes have a perfect flower, both male and female parts, so all they need for pollination is to be shaken. Wind might do it but your pollinators certainly will. They don't need to transfer pollen from one plant to another, just shake the flower by landing on it. Knowing you I assume they are mulched and not drying out.

I had the same types of problems in NW Arkansas. The big tomatoes would pretty much shut down when it heated up. Some smaller ones, like cherry tomatoes, Early Girl, and a hybrid I usually grew called 4th of July, would continue to produce enough for me to eat on but big-time production would really slow down until the fall when the nights cooled off. That's usually when I'd get a majority of my canning tomatoes and sauce. I'd keep them alive during the summer and they'd be loaded in the fall. You may be having one of those unusual years where it's even worse than normal.

 

[flowerbug]

i know that the heat can get to them at times so when there are a lot of flowers on the plants i drench them pretty good with the hose. this does three things, it shakes the flowers, it cools off the plant for a while and in our clay it keeps the soil soaking in some water regularly.

it may also encourage diseases, but i'm in the camp where by the time the diseases take the plants out for the season i'm done with them anyways. in the years we've been growing the Ball Beefsteaks this has worked consistently enough that i doubt i'll change my methods any time soon... we usually get between 20-30lbs of tomatoes per plant (sometimes even more).

they're doing pretty good right now. finally getting tall and plenty of flowers and fruits showing up.

next week is supposed to cool off into the high 70s-low-80s for some days so perhaps that will be the time they'll set a lot more fruits.

 

[majorcatfish]

You could use a little paint brush and tickle the flowers...

 

[thejenx]

Just tap the top of the flowers gently, this will help pollination.