If you are looking for a simple way to increase your tomato plants’ yields, you need to try out hand pollinating your tomatoes. This simple task can make a huge difference between plants putting out just a few fruits here and there – or one with loads of fresh, juicy tomatoes all season long!
Similarly to eggplants and peppers, tomato plants are self pollinators. This means that they produce flowers that contain both the male and female plant parts.
In order for a flower to get pollinated, the pollen simply has to move within the same flower. This often occurs by the wind blowing or from pollinators like wasps and bees. But in some cases, tomato plants can use a helping hand moving pollen around – literally!
The best part of all? Hand pollinating doesn’t require any special equipment. In fact, you can usually use common household items to help distribute the pollen, or simply move the branches and flowers by hand to make the magic happen!
When You Should Hand Pollinate Tomato Plants
There are some instances where hand pollination is required or needed. For example, if you are growing tomato plants in greenhouses or other enclosed structures, bees and butterflies won’t have access to the blooms. No pollinators equals no chance for the pollen to get transferred within each bloom.
Even growing plants outside on small patios or in the middle of suburban areas where pollinators might not be located can cause plants to set plenty of blooms but no fruit. Aside from planting flowers and other plants to draw in pollinators, you might need to hand pollinate.
Another situation would be if your plants are located in a spot where wind doesn’t really move plants around. Even gentle winds can help shake the plant foliage and dislodge the pollen within each flower, but without the wind, the branches (and thus the blooms) won’t ever get a chance to move.
Lastly, an overly moist summer can cause tomato plants to struggle to make fruit. When the weather is overly humid and damp, the pollen clumps together making pollination less successful. This is another great time for hand pollination.
When You Shouldn’t Hand Pollinate Tomato Plants
There are some instances where you want to hold off on hand pollinating tomato plants. Forcing plants to attempt to produce and ripen fruit when they aren’t healthy enough or if conditions aren’t right can be a death sentence for these plants.
If you notice that your plants have yellowing leaves or they look weak and spindly, the tomatoes likely can’t support ripening fruit. It takes a lot of nutrients and resources to produce and sustain growing fruit.
Tomato plants that are already lacking in nutrients and struggling just to survive should be allowed to strengthen up before attempting hand pollination. If this is the case, it’s best to give your tomato plants a dose of fertilizer first and wait a few weeks before trying. See our article: How To Fertilize Tomatoes With Liquid Fertilizer
Last but not least, hold off on hand pollination if you see severe damage done by pests or indications of disease. Treat the issue at hand and allow plants to regain before hand pollinating.
How To Hand Pollinate Tomato Plants With Ease
While you can hand pollinate tomato plants any time, it’s best to wait until the middle of the day. By then, the tiny yellow blooms are usually open nice and wide. In addition, all of the morning dew will be dry allowing for easy transfer of the pollen.
If it has recently rained, hold off on hand pollinating by at least a few hours. Moist conditions cause the pollen to clump together and make the process less successful. Now let’s take a look at a few simple ways to accomplish pollinating by hand.
#1 Gently Shaking Plants
The first way of hand pollinating tomato plants mimics the wind. And it couldn’t be easier! All you really need to do is lightly shake or vibrate the foliage and stems.
There are a few ways to go about doing this. First, you can simply grasp the top of each tomato plant stem and gently shake it. This will cause the pollen to move around within each bloom, essentially pollinating them. While it is the easiest method, it is not the best method.
Another more successful way to mimic the wind is by lightly tapping the base of each bloom. You can use your finger or a thin pencil to accomplish this on harder-to-reach blooms.
If you really want to go even further in your efforts, you can lightly press an old electric toothbrush at the base of each bloom. The vibration of the toothbrush will dislodge the pollen, allowing it to fall onto the stigma.
#2 Using A Brush – How To Hand Pollinate Tomato Plants
The next and by far most common and successful way to hand-pollinate tomato plants is to use a small paintbrush, toothbrush, or even a Q-tip. The key isn’t to transfer the pollen from flower to flower. Instead, it is to loosen the pollen up and move it around within each bloom.
Take the brush or Q-tip and gently “stir” the pollen inside each flower. Do this process carefully since tomato blooms are fragile and can easily fall off.
Before moving between different tomato varieties, clean off the brush to avoid cross-pollination. While this won’t affect this year’s fruit produced, the seeds of the tomato will not be true so that might hinder your seed collecting for heirloom plants.
Repeating The Process – How To Hand Pollinate Tomato Plants
No matter which method you use, it’s important to repeat the process once every two to three days. Determinate tomato varieties only produce blooms for a few weeks, this makes it very important for them to get as many pollinated as possible.
Indeterminate varieties will continue to push out blooms up until the first frost. Hand pollinate these plants for a few days every couple of weeks for continual harvests.
You can tell when a bloom has been pollinated by observing it for about a week. The key is to look at the base of the bloom. You should start to see a little green mass begin to form after a week or two. This growth is the new growing tomato.
Whether plants have pollinated or not, the yellow blooms will all eventually fall off within a few days, so don’t be surprised if this occurs. Before you know it, you will have loads of fresh, ripening tomatoes to harvest thanks to your hand pollinating efforts!
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