How To Tell If Tomato Flower Is Pollinated

How To Tell If Tomato Flower Is Pollinated? When you grow your own tomatoes, it’s pretty important to know if you are going to get anything from them.

It can be easy to tell when the flower has been pollinated, and these seven ways will help you know if your tomato flower is pollinated or not.

How To Tell If Tomato Flower Is Pollinated

1) Check the colour

If your flower is pink or red, you’re in luck. Check under its petals—if you see little green protrusions, you’ve got a bountiful harvest on your hands.

To determine whether those green balls are actually tomato seeds or just unripened fruit, give it another day or two and look again if they appear light brown with black speckles, congratulations! You’ve got tomatoes growing inside that flower.

2) Check the stamen

Visually inspecting your tomato’s stamen can confirm whether or not pollination occurred. If it looks like a fuzzy cotton ball, then yes—pollination did occur.

If, however, it looks like there’s still pollen on or around the flower, it means that pollination didn’t occur, and you should take steps to re-pollinate.

To do so, simply use a toothpick or pin to apply new pollen from another tomato plant onto your plant’s stigma.

3) Check for bees and other insects on the plant

If you’re gardening in a more tropical climate, you might want to check for bees, beetles, or other insects on your plants. It’s possible that these tiny creatures are pollinating your tomatoes for you.

4) Check the curling of anthers

Curling anthers are a sign that pollination has occurred. You can check to see whether they’ve been curling by holding a piece of tomato stem with your finger and thumb.

If you have any ripe tomatoes, you can tell whether they’ve been pollinated by removing them from their vine and checking for ripeness.

5) Look at leaves below the flower

The easiest way to tell whether or not a tomato flower has been pollinated is by looking at leaves below it. If there are light-coloured spots on a leaf that means a bumblebee was in your garden, and you should check out those flowers for pollination.

Be sure to look under every single flower—if you see no light spots on any of them, then you know there wasn’t enough pollen flying around for anything to happen.

While you’re at it, take a look at all of your tomato plants; if they show no signs of being pollinated and aren’t producing tomatoes, consider putting out more flowers or other types of plants that do attract bees!

6) Take note of smell

If you notice a strange smell, it might be because your tomato flowers were pollinated by beetles. They’re capable of carrying pollen and planting it in flowers without any assistance from bees or other insects, so keep an eye out for unusual smells around your garden.

If you detect anything odd, carefully remove that flower from its vine. And don’t worry: The beetles won’t cause damage by doing so—they simply want food and are taking advantage of your sweet tomatoes.

7) Check leaves and stems

The easiest way to tell whether or not a tomato flower has been pollinated is by checking leaves and stems. If you don’t see seeds at the base of your tomatoes, there’s a good chance they were cross-pollinated.

Check nearby tomato plants: Cross-pollination may be apparent on your tomato plant, but it might not show up for weeks—if at all. In fact, some tomato varieties need certain weather conditions or particular insects in order to produce seeds.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you’ve found this helpful. Understanding How To Tell If Tomato Flower Is Pollinated can be quite difficult, but with the tips and tricks in this post, you’ll have a better idea of what to look for.

Always remember that only the actual sun provides the necessary heat for pollination. While your local or even indoor grow lamps may provide some light and warmth, they won’t provide the same amount of heat as the sun.

John C. Crawford

I am John C. Crawford. I am the founder of EnjoyWiki.com. I am a professional freelancer, blogger and content writer. I have several blogs and EnjoyWiki.com is one of them. I always love to share my experience on my blogs.