Pollinate tomatoes: Morning is the best time

Created: 06/19/2022, 03:00 p.m

By: Ines Alms

If you pollinate tomatoes yourself by hand, you can increase the harvest by a third.

This “trilling” of the flowers should ideally happen in the morning.

Veitshöchheim – Pollination of tomatoes outdoors is actually not a problem; bumblebees, bees or the wind take care of that.

It is different in a closed greenhouse, where the animals and the draft are usually missing.

Humans can help out and pollinate the tomato blossoms themselves - the best time for the "trill" is in the morning.

Pollinate tomatoes: Morning is the best time

In the field, bees pollinate the tomatoes, in the greenhouse you should help.

(Iconic image) © Panthermedia/Imago

Giving the tomatoes a little nudge for pollination is not unusual, this is also known as trilling: With a shaking, quick movement of your fingers you tap the flower spikes, imitating a bee or the wind.

An electric toothbrush is even more professional as a tomato pollinator.

There is a perfect amount of time for this time, as Marianne Scheu-Helgert, Head of Department at the Bavarian Garden Academy in Veitshöchheim, reports to the "Bayerischer Rundfunk" (BR): "At home, it is best to give the plants a little push at around eleven o'clock - on pot or on the stem in the flowering area.”

Incidentally, the morning is also the right time to water the tomatoes so that the moisture does not accumulate at night and the plant is supplied with water during the day.

You can find even more exciting gardening topics in our free newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Tomatoes can be pollinated with a fan or brush

Marianne Scheu-Hergert explains why the morning is particularly suitable for pollination: "Tomato blossoms bloom in the morning, the central stigma, the pistil, is then moist, depending on the humidity until around the early afternoon.

The pollen is initially sticky, later it dries up.

Unlike most other plants, the tomato is self-pollinating.

Ideally, slightly dried pollen should come off and get caught on the stigma if it falls.” In short, if the tomato stigma is too dry, the pollen can no longer cling to it.

But there are other ways to give the tomato fruits a little help:

• A fan at the lowest level takes over the pollination function of the wind in the greenhouse and also ensures that the plants grow stronger.

• A so-called foil tunnel or a tomato roof that is open on the side: The plants are protected from the rain from above, but the wind or the bees can reach the flowers unhindered.

  Climbing aids are not only useful outdoors to support the tomatoes.

• Using a soft, dry brush, brush over the stigmas and pollen sacs of the tomato flowers.

In order to have a rich harvest, you should also regularly pinch the tomatoes, i.e. remove superfluous shoots and leaves.