My Oxygenated Tomatoes

[Jackalope]

In another thread, Hand Pollinating (http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1177) I wrote about an oxygen generator that I had come across that I'm using under two tomatoes in my grow-beds ....
BTW, a guy died and I ended up with his oxygen generator - which puts out pure oxygen, if I'm not wrong. I had some tomatoes growing that a couple of the leaves were kinda pale, looked like they were going to turn yellow ...... I put the oxygen directly under the two plants and now all the leaves are a deep emerald green ;) The rest of the plants in the GB are looking better too!. This has been working great for growth, we run it for about 6 to 8 hours a day ..... after research, I have found that these machines put out anywhere between 50% to 95% pure oxygen, depending on the brand of the machine.

My only problem with this is that the tomato plants have grown to 6 ft high, are flowering like crazy, but are not bearing fruit, they just keep growing taller and taller :? My wife says that maybe I need to cut the tops out of them ...... does anyone have any opinions on this? The flowers die off and go away, but no fruit has shown itself ....... What am I doing wrong? This is the same way my squash acted ....... all flowers and no fruit! Any ideas?

[Dufflight]

You may have to hand pollinate. Plants need carbon dioxide of a day as well.

[Jackalope]

You may have to hand pollinate. Plants need carbon dioxide of a day as well.
The only thing I could find out about hand pollinating tomatoes was that you need to shake the plant two or three times a day as if a bumblebee were buzzing it ..... I'll have to do some more searching ..... thanks Duff

[Dufflight]

If its in a green house stick a fan in with it.:D

[Jackalope]

If its in a green house stick a fan in with it.:D
No, it's in my home ..... I live in Montana, and it could snow any time :( We had three days of freezing just about two weeks ago, they predicted snow, but we didn't get any here .... I think they got some in Billings (100 miles South of us in the Banana Belt lol) I've got an old fan, I'll try that .... Thanks

[HawaiianSi]

I also have that same problem. My tomatoes keep flowering and then the blossoms drop. Is it possible that there may be too little nitrogen? I think i might have read that somewhere. Could it be another defficiency maybe?

[Bidadisndat]

Had the same problem with tomatoes that were very well protected from insects by a shadecloth and clear plastic cover. Got fruit growing after opening the cover to allow bees in.

[Outbackozzie]

Lack of potassium guys....

See if you can find some of this / similar (http://www.minplus.com.au/)

A very handy page on nutrient deficiency (http://www.hortnet.co.nz/publications/guides/fertmanual/vege2.htm#I8)

Get some micro nutrients in there, and you had better like tomato's :D

[nwestwood]

I see this in my greenhouse aquaponics system http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=942.

If I don't supliment iron, potassium, calcium monthly, then the baby cucs dry up and fall off, and my tomatoe blossoms all fall off. The day I supliment, the flowers set and fruit grows.

As for pollinating tomatoes, I've raised a lot of toms in the greenhouse and found that if I have any kind of air movement, I don't have to do anything. If I'm concerned, I just flick the flower stem a couple of times each evening when I'm checking on things, or just flick the strings that the plants are attached to and the blossoms wiggle enough.

In my greenhouse there is an overhead fan that blows to circulate the hot air that can build up near the top and it's swamp cooled, so all summer the cooler fan runs moving air, and in the winter, the heater runs moving air, as such I stopped doing anything to polinate and they do fine AS LONG AS the mineral supliments get made regularly. Potassium can be purchased as Potash, I put about 1 tablespoon per month in my 300 gallon tank system.