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No flowers on my healthy looking indoor tomato plant

last month

Hi, This is my first time growing tomatoes which I am doing under grow lights in my garage in Houston, TX with 18 hours of light a day. I germinated three plants from seed and each one is now around 18inces to 24 inches. The look healthy and lush but only one of them has any flowers (but only three). Yesterday I started watering with a 0-10-10 fertilizer after googling the problem. Any advise would be welcome. The temparature is around 72ºF during the day with aourn 70% humidity some of the time.

Comments (3)

  • last month

    I suspect that you suspect that it may be due to too much nitrogen? Maybe? But if your local temps are nice then perhaps placing the plants outside in real sunlight will help give them a boost? Personally I never had much luck with growing tomatoes in pots, even big pots, unless they were cherry tomatoes. If you do switch your plants to outdoor sun then doing it gradually over time is the best way to acclimate them and prevent shock/burn.

  • 28 days ago

    If you are going to be planting tomatoes in smaller containers, it is best to use a dwarf variety or even micro dwarf. Dwarfs get to 2 to 4 feet tall and micros get 8 inches to 18 inches. It is difficult to grow tomatoes indoors till fruiting. They start in doors easily but sunlight is so much more intense than grow lights. If this is your first time growing tomatoes at all you are doing a good job. A picture would tell us more if you may also have a nutrient problem.

  • 28 days ago

    Tomatoes mature based on Light and heat, the less of both they receive the longer it takes to grow, flower and produce tomatoes. People who grow tomatoes know cool cloudy seasons mean it will take longer to get tomatoes

    The Light a tomato plant needs to flower and make tomatoes is 500 to 700 µmol/sm². A Mol just comes from a formula to tell how many light photons per second are emitted from a light.

    the sun will average 1900 µmol/sm² at high noon in the summer. A T8 florescent light will only produce 30 - 35 µmol/sm². So your light may just not emit enough light photons. I use eight 4' T8 florescent tubes over my seedlings and enough to grow them into the vegetative stage and even to produce some flowers but I don't think they could support growing any tomatoes.

    Heat is important or maturity will be delayed. Tomatoes are warm weather plants and the optimum temperatures are between 70 and 85 degrees. Your day time temps of 72 are at the lower end of optimal, so growth and maturity will just be slower. Believe it or not but many warm season plants including tomato plants will take daily temperature and add them up. The added results trigger changes in growth and development. There are published charts showing the total for any area in the US called growing degree day (GDD), and Houston as of yesterday is at 22GGD growing outside. You growing inside at 72 degrees would be 22 GGD per day, so a month would give you 660 GGD. Tomatoes need about 1200 GGD to change to the reproductive stage, so if your plants are only 2 months old they would just now be entering the flowering stage.

    What does µmol/sm² and GGD mean to anyone except a commercial farmer? Absolutely nothing but I'm just showing you the REASONS you're not getting flowers. Your fertilization is another big issue. I believe your information comes from the internet for mature heavily vegetated plants with dark green leaves but I don't believe this is what you have. You have plants in pots under lights and you mentioned 0-10-10 but if you're using just the 3 major nutrients there are another 11 more needed that become depleted quickly in a pot. A 2:1:3 ratio for tomatoes, even a 3-1-2 will work and is what you need for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. and this is the RATIO, not what's on the front of the bag or bottle.

    give the plants more light, more heat and better fertilizers with all the nutrients they need and you will get flowers and tomatoes.

    .

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