one tomato plant not growing any tomatoes

I have 8 plants and 7 all have had a decent number of tomatoes, but one plant has not had any. It is the plant the has grown the best and biggest and looks the healthiest. It's actually huge-- over 6 feet tall, and filled out well. Has had lots of flowers, but not one tomato. It's in the same spot as I had one last year that produced many tomatoes. I'm confused why this one plant is not growing any tomatoes, and it is the biggest and healthiest of the lot.

Reply to
Gus
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Hi Gus,

Describe for us what happens to the flowers after they bloom.

-T

Reply to
Todd

Also, wonder if you were overwatering this plant? Not supposed to water much after flowers appear to keep plant from putting its strength into greenery rather than fruit

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

I don't know. I don't notice them on the ground. I just let it grow without doing much other than staking/caging it for support. I've treated it the same as the other plants, which is pretty much just let it grown on it's own.

Reply to
Gus

Disclaimer: I have a black thumb, so I am probably wrong.

Hi Gus,

If you have bees, and if your flowers close up, turn black, and fall off, then you are under watering them.

The local organic greenhouse, before the turkeys moved to another county on me, use to soak their tomatoes every day. They told me that they are a Amazonian tropical plant and the expect to get *drenched* every day. But to make sure the soil drains. They don't like sitting in water.

HTH,

-T

Reply to
Todd

It IS weird, how one plant will take off & leave the others behind (my cucumbers) and sometimes all will do well except e.g.your big contrarian. And they say plants have no personalities!

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

So you've had a healthy looking plant not bear anything sometimes? I don't plant much and only tomatoes this year. First time I have seen this happen. I keep expecting one day for it to have a whole bunch of tomatoes, but it is August and still not one... It would make more sense if the plant right next to it wasn't bearing anything too, but it is. Or, there was something about the exact spot that the pollinators are avoiding, but it's same spot I had one last year that also grew huge and bore many fruit.

Reply to
Gus

This isn't directly relevant to your huge, egotistical outlier but I no ticed you planted same veg in same spot as last year. I understood it's pr eferable to rotate to different areas each year. Avoid possible ? bad stuf f in soil and possibly depleted ? good stuff for given plant.

Very vague,but does anybody know what I'm talking about? Agree/disagree? F ill in question marks?

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

there are many possible reasons, but if the plant is not in some way isolated from pollinators or otherwise protected from the wind or the rain then i would guess that it is a mutation that affects self-pollination.

you could try to take pollen off another plant and to hand pollinate a flower and see if that works (using a small paint brush).

this year for us our cherry tomatoes are fairly barren, the beefsteaks are doing fine. usually we have more cherry tomatoes than we can eat.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

This may be a dumb question, but is there some art/technique to this? Just brush the flower(s) of a different plant and then brush the flowers of the non-producing plant? It's a beefsteak plant which are my favorite garden tomato.

I'm going to go check the plant now. I used to have a small paint brush. I think it's still around here somewhere.

Reply to
Gus

Just checked and still no tomatoes on that one plant. I can't find my little paintbrush but have a new 1.5 inch; I guess that will work if careful?

Another half eaten tomato from the plant next to it. I've come to the conclusion the only way to deal with the squirrels here is just plant so many tomato plants it can't eat them all. They are very territorial so I think it's just the one squirrel, maybe it's mate too. Earlier this year, I harvested about a dozen tomatoes after it started in on eating the green ones. A second crop is forming now and should be ready for picking in a week or two.

Reply to
Gus

This seems helpful. I do have Qtips... I didn't know there were male and female flowers. In the past, I just planted plants and they grew and produced on their own.

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Reply to
Gus

I'm more confused. All the flowers on the plants look the same. I don't see any that look female like the article shows. Even on the other plants that are producing they all have what appears to be a stamen sticking out of the flower. The flowers all look the same.

Reply to
Gus

Probably not.

The hand pollination is a long shot. Tomatoes are usually self-pollinating. While bird's idea is not impossible it is far from likely.

By 'small' I would picture a brush of 3mm (1/8th in) not 1.5in. You have to get the tip into the flower and on to the anther, the little spike in the middle.

Or perhaps yopu will produce a boom in their numbers.

They are very

Have you tried netting them? Bird net is cheap.

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Tomatoes do not have male and female flowers. Each flower is both. Normally they self polinate, from the same plant if not the same flower, mainly due to the wind.

In the tomato they are. The example was for squash etc which have separate male and female flowers. Be careful generalising in the world of plants, one size does not fit all.

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Hi Gus and Songbird,

I think there may be a clue from Gus' original port:

"It is the plant the has grown the best and biggest and looks the healthiest"

Gus, Are you using a organic or a conventional fertilizer? If you are using a conventional fertilizer, there is a possibility you hit it with too much nitrogen.

If so, Songbird will know how to fix it.

Just an idea.

-T

Reply to
Todd

Would a gentle shake do the trick?

Reply to
Todd

David Hare-Scott wrote: ...

certainly it is a strange way to go about things, but sometimes it is worth a try, as is dinging the flowers with the tip of your finger, or sometimes watering the plant even onto the flowers to shake them around, even if it isn't always the best thing to do to get the leaves wet...

short of some observation or more description of why this plant would be pollinating differently would likely help too, but sometimes we don't always get all the facts of a matter.

and yes, mutations, by their nature, do tend to be not very frequent, but they do happen (as evidenced by the pea i planted last year that ended up not having any functional chlorophyll in it at all -- it died shortly after the cotyledons ran out of energy).

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Are they different tomato varieties? Some varieties are more temperature sensitive than others, so will not set well if the nights are too cool or the days too hot.

Sometimes it can help to do something to stress the happy but unproductive tomato plant. Prune some of the foliage, maybe even stick a spade down along one side of the plant to sever some roots. Force the plant out of vegetative mode and into survival mode: "I have to set some seed before I croak!!!"

Reply to
Pat Kiewicz

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