Tomatoes going ballistic

[rob the roller]

I have a number of tomato plants where the trusses are producing literally hundreds of flowers.

This happened to me once previously. The trusses continually produced flowers, which set fruit, but it would not ripen. At the end I counted some 200 fruits per truss before the plants succumbed to blight. I don't want this to happen again.

The difference this time is that the plants are in pots (as opposed to being planted out in the garden. The variety on the previous occasion was Sweet Million. I can't seem to find the packet the seeds were in this time, but I think it was Red Alert or Red Tornado. Whatever, it was one of the very small varieties.

Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, how did they deal with it? The plants are terrific to look at at this stage, but it is heartbreaking when all the fruit is lost.

[SMS6]

How many trusses have you let it get up to? Is it a bush variety or a cordon?

[SarzWix]

Rob, all of those varieties are supposed to produce a lot of flowers per truss, but especially the Sweet Millions - that's what the name means.. But all cherry tomatoes tend to have big trusses. The only way to limit them so that you get some ripe fruit is by pinching out extra shoots as they form once you've got one or 2 trusses.

I grew Millefleur last year (which has massive trusses) in the greenhouse and still didn't manage to ripen them all. I've stuck to Sungold for cherry tomatoes this year which never have a problem with ripening
Hope that helps

[rob the roller]

They are indeterminate SMS6 (which I think is cordon). They have 2 or 3 trusses per plant at the moment.

I am used to lots of flowers per truss Sarah and welcome them, but usually they stop producing flowers when they reach a certain number and get on with producing and ripening fruit.

I'll try pinching out the latest flowers and see if that helps.

Thank you for the advice.

Rob