Tomato pollination

[chris]

I've some green sausages flowering now - do I need to move them out doors during the day for insects to do their bit ? Or do they just flower, and then set fruit?

Also, what are trussels? What do they look like? I've read about pinching out the top of moneymaker once it's 6 trussels set?

[Jillyreeves]

Green Sausage dont need pinching out Chris. they are a bush variety :-)

[chris]

Aye, they seem tiny in comparison to my money makers - but it was them that I was wondering about... they're erm getting quite large

Do they just set fruit anyway?

[poly]

If you are short on pollinators it is worth giving a couple of taps to the tomato stem to help spread the pollen. Are they in a greenhouse or inside your house. I've noticed plenty of visitors in the greenhouse here, but still give a daily tap to help

Trussels I think are Trusses = the flowering fruiting branch of the tomato plant. It is normally recommended to pinch these out on cordon tomatoes after about 6 trusses have set to direct energy to ripening the fruits they have already made. No point having too many green fruit that won't ripen in the Autumn.

Cordons also need their side shoots removed whereas bush tomatoes do not.

[chris]

They're in the kitchen! So just tapping the stem is all I need? My GH is arriving on the 12 of May (been a loooong wait) so I should have thoguht they'll be in the GH around the 20th!

[Paulottie]

Never tapped a tomato in my life and yet have seemed to always end up with too many of the things!!...although not beyond giving my sweetcorn a tickle.

[Tomatoking]

I have actually tickled thousands of trusses!
In Guernsey, Holland, Portugal and in the UK we used a device made from a door bell, with the bells removed and just the vibrating arm part used to vibrate the trusses. We did this once or twice a week on the top trusses.

The other thing that we did was to spray the plants with water by hand to keep the humidity high and shake the trusses gently with the jet from the hose. Obviously, this was only done on really hot days, so the plants dried out by night, and on cooler days there was enough humidity anyway which was the days that we used the vibrators!

This helped the setting, as we needed a good return for every plant, so did all we could for the best production.

As Paulottie pointed out, you will still get a good crop without tickling, but a good tickle never did any harm!

[OllieMartin]

What I've learned from the Vine:
Tomatoes self-pollinate, so you don't need insects to cross pollinate them, tapping them helps spread their pollen about, but if they're outside the wind would do that for you.

[bramble]

I use a feather to pollinate mine, but as someone else said, mine have been in the conservatory until yesterday and some of them have started to form little fruits even though they are inside.

I put all my tomato plants out in the cold greenhouse yesterday after potting them on into very large pots. Fingers crossed.

[King Carrot]

I use a feather to pollinate mine, but as someone else said, mine have been in the conservatory until yesterday and some of them have started to form little fruits even though they are inside.

I put all my tomato plants out in the cold greenhouse yesterday after potting them on into very large pots. Fingers crossed.

It might be worth keeping an eye on the temperatures esp. Mon and Tues as I can see 4C on the forcast for Dublin - if you can't move them try and protect them with fleece/paper or warm the GH somehow.

XCWeather - Forecast for Dublin

[Madasafish]

In 20 years of tomato growing I have ignored pollination and let nature do it. Never any problems .

[Flummery]

They self pollinate very well without intervention. If you're growing commercially you need very high pollination percentages but we amateurs get seriously good enough without effort. Tapping the stems works, but so does ignoring them!