View Single Post
  #2   Report Post  
Old 09-04-2010, 04:14 AM posted to bionet.plants
[email protected] bae@cs.toronto.no-uce.edu is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 47
Default Question fertilizing plants

In article ,
Mohamed wrote:
Hi,

I have a hybrid tomato genotype that I need fruits and seeds from;
however it is currently not flowering, and looks rather "sad." I intend
to add some fertilizer (it gets a weekly regime of fertilizer in small
doses); however, I read somewhere that Bloom Boost (don't know which
brand exactly) is supposed to promote flowering - which I can then
hand-pollinate to obtain seeds, so as to not lose this genotype. Any
thoughts and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Are you trying to grow this plant indoors? If so, it may not be getting
enough light. In that case, fertilizers won't help. If you move it
outdoors, be sure to expose it to full sun gradually, or the leaves will
burn.

Most tomato cultivars will produce a cluster of blooms after they
produce a set number of leaves, which is different for different
cultivars.

If the plant gets too stringy from lack of light, note that tomatoes
root from cuttings very easily, so you can cut it up and make more
plants.

Self-pollinating tomatoes is very easy -- it just takes a little wind or
vibration to get pollen to fall on the stigma. For greenhouse crops, it
used to be standard practice to go down the row and hit each stake with
a stick once a day. If you're growing the plant outdoors, you may want
to cover the entire truss with cheesecloth or rowcover material before
any flowers open to prevent any cross pollination.