A green tomato looks as unnatural on a table as a yellow cucumber. Therefore, growers expect from these vegetables to be exclusively salable, given to the fruits with classic red or at least exotic yellow and orange flowers. About why tomatoes in greenhouses often do not blush on time, and ways to eliminate this problem will be discussed later.

Factors affecting the growth rate of tomatoes in a greenhouse

In a normal situation, the tomatoes, having formed an ovary, gain fruit volume within a month, after which they ripen for 2-3 weeks. That is, after 40–55 days, the tomato should reach commodity condition.

To do this, he needs:

• full coverage, which even in a greenhouse should be as sunny as possible, but if it is impossible to do so, must be substantially supplemented by artificial lighting;
• correct temperature, which should not go beyond +15 ... + 35 ° C at an optimal average temperature of +25 ° C;
• sufficient watering while keeping the air dry;
• distance between tomato bushes not less than half a meter, excluding thickening of landings;
• withtimely removal of excess leaves from the plant.

Did you know? In its short century of existence as a cultivated plant that lasts less than 500 years, fruit tOmata, barely reaching a weight of 1 g, turned into kilograms and more.

Why tomatoes do not blush in the greenhouse: the main reasons

Most cases associated with this problem are triggered by a violation of the agrotechnical conditions for growing tomatoes.

Violation of microclimatic conditions

Exit of the temperature regime in greenhouses beyond +20 ... + 30 ° C leads to a violation of lycopene synthesis in fruits, which significantly prevents their reddening. At temperatures below +15 ° C, the development of the plant is sharply inhibited, with a corresponding slowdown in the ripening of its fruits. And with heat above +35 ° C, tomatoes generally stop growing. Very negatively affect the well-being of plants and temperature fluctuations.

The lack of lighting also adversely affects the development of tomatoes, significantly slowing it down. In greenhouses closer to autumn, the lack of sunlight should be compensated by good artificial lighting, garter bushes for the best access of light to the fruit and elimination of excessive foliage for the same purpose. Being a moisture-loving crop, the tomato, however, does not tolerate humidity, which also fraught with the occurrence of fungal diseases that can destroy it in the vine. Therefore, the air in the greenhouse should be as dry as possible.

Nutrient deficiency

The inhibition of pigmentation of tomato fruits can also be caused by a deficiency of certain nutrients in the soil.

Most often, tomato plants are missing:

• potassium;
• iodine;
• phosphorus.

Tomato overload with fruits

Often, tomatoes do not blush for a long time due to an elementary lack of strength in the plant. This is most often caused by an overloaded tomato bush with ovaries, shoots and leaves that lack nutrition.

Did you know? Tomatoes belong to those few plant fruits whose useful properties during heat treatment are not lost, but, on the contrary, are activated.

What to do if the tomatoes do not blush

When the reasons for inhibiting the pigmentation of tomatoes are known, these reasons should be eliminated.

Fertilizers and fertilizers

By applying fertilizers, the deficiency of nutrients is eliminated, leading to a slowdown in the staining of tomato fruits. Answering the question of how to feed the plant, vegetable growers resort to the use of both chemical and folk remedies.

Chemicals

The growth rate of solanum plants, to which tomato belongs, is often affected by a lack of iodine in the soil. To fill this shortage, vegetable growers use foliar top dressing with a low percentage of iodine solution, for which 30 drops of the product are added to a bucket of settled water. In addition to iodine, the inhibited pigmentation of tomato fruits indicates a lack of phosphorus and potassium in the soil.

To fill the deficiency of phosphorus should:

1. Granular superphosphate in an amount of 0.1 kg pour a liter of boiling water. After thorough mixing, leave the mixture for a day, during which it should be mixed several more times.
2. Separate the resulting extract from the sediment and in the amount of 20 tbsp. l add to 3 l of water.
3. Then add 150 ml of this solution to a bucket of water and pour over the resulting mixture of plants, pouring 1 liter under each bush.

Important! 94% of the phosphorus received by the plant goes to the formation and ripening of the fetus, therefore this element is so important in solving problems with a delay in staining of the fruit.

Folk remedies

Not only a lack of nutrients can inhibit the pigmentation of tomato fruits, but also their overabundance. With the abundance of stepchildren on the bush and a powerful green mass, the slow redness of tomatoes may indicate an excess of nitrogen in the soil, which most often gets into it due to popular organic fertilizers. Therefore, its introduction should be discontinued, and in return taken care of by another folk remedy in the form of ordinary furnace wood ash, which will fill the shortage of potassium in the ground.

This potash top dressing can be enriched by adding iodine, useful for tomatoes. Step-by-step actions in this case are as follows:

1. In a bucket you need to pour 2 liter cans of crushed ash.
2. Pour boiling water in a volume of 5 l.
3. In the cooled mixture, it is necessary to add another 5 l of settled water.
4. After the covered bucket of ash water has been left in the dark for a week, it must be filtered and 20 ml of iodine and 10 mg of boric acid added to it.
5. Then, when watering, in each bucket with 9 l of water settled at room temperature, 1 l of iodine-boron-ash solution should be added and the resulting diluted solution of 1 l should be poured under each tomato bush.

Climate recovery

If there is a lack of illumination, it is necessary to provide plants in the greenhouse with artificial lighting. Adequate watering in several steps should be combined with low humidity in the greenhouse, which is achieved by good ventilation. Particular attention should be paid to the temperature regime, which greatly affects the proper pigmentation of fruits. It is necessary to eliminate the existing temperature fluctuations in order to achieve an optimum average temperature of +25 ° C.

Removing stepsons and new flowers

In the deciduous sinuses of tomato bushes, stepsons are regularly formed that are not needed by the formed plant and must be eliminated, since they take away nutrients from the bush, depriving the ripening fruits of their intake. Stepchildren are removed 10 days after transplanting seedlings into the ground and repeated every half a month. It is best to perform pinching in the morning, when the processes are easier to break off.

Important! Stepsons are not recommended to be cut with scissors, but should be carefully broken off with fingers dipped in a weak solution of potassium permanganate.

It is also necessary to remove new flowers on the bush, giving the ovaries, which will take away additional nutrients from the plant, but will not have time to grow into a full-fledged fruit and ripen.

Pinching the tops

When the optimal number of brushes with ovaries is formed on the bush, it is useful to remove the top so that the plant does not spend unnecessary forces on forming useless foliage and concentrates on bringing the resulting fruits to a marketable appearance. During this operation, everything above the upper brush with ovaries is trimmed, except for 2-3 leaves adjacent to the brush, which are necessary for a full metabolism. If this is not done, then the complete elimination of the leaves will lead to a problem with the development of the ovaries in the upper brush.

Useful Tips

• If all agrotechnical rules are meticulously observed, and the tomatoes nevertheless turn red poorly, for a long time, slowly or incompletely, experienced vegetable growers resort to non-standard measures.
• Pour some vodka into the area of ​​the tomato root system, which stimulates the pigmentation of tomatoes for several weeks, without changing their taste characteristics.
• Based on the observation that plants sharply activate their forces when a threat arises for them, mechanically restricts nutrient access. To do this, vegetable growers make a small through cut in the stem or gently pull it with copper wire. As a result, the resulting nutrient deficiency stimulates faster fruit ripening.
• Another tough way is to easy pulling the bush from the ground until a faint crackle of exploding roots is heard. A small cut off of the additional roots also somewhat limits the flow of nutrients into the plant, which makes it activate the ripening of its fruits.
• Can I have some more with a toothpick, chop a green tomato near the stem in 2-3 places to a depth of 2 cm. This also stimulates its pigmentation well.
• An interesting method in which a well-ripened red tomato is placed in a plastic bag and put this bag on a brush of green tomatoes, tying a hole on the bag with a soft cloth ribbon. Oddly enough, but after a couple of days, green tomatoes begin to blush synchronously.

Video: How to make a tomato blush

There are many ways to stimulate tomatoes, delaying the pigmentation of their fruits, in the end to give the desired color. However, no tricks can replace the creation of optimal conditions for the plant for its comfortable growth.