[lightyears]

not mine, but my grandads, ive cut and paste his thread from another message board. can anyone help out

"I suppose there must be several keen gardeners on here , hence I will mention a problem that I seem to have with my plants in the greenhouse  For some reason they don`t seem to be pollinating very well . I have not encountered this problem in all the years that I have grown them .  Could it be that the climate change is to blame or has the Bee started it`s decline , as we have been told would happen. Any sensible comment apreciated."

[SG6]

If there are less bees around and as the plants are in a green house then it would seem to simply be a case of bees not getting into the greenhouse to pollinate the plants.

Bees would I suspect avoid entering a building so even if there are bees around I would say that the pollination rate would be reduced for plants in a greenhouse.

[lightyears]

he has been growing them for 40 years in the greenhouse, every year with a bumper response. just this year is a bit of a let down.

[mumofstig]

Tomatoes don't rely on bees for pollination. They are self fertile and just tapping the strings/canes will release the pollen within the flower so that it will pollinate itself.
I still think that a lot of the problems with tomatoes this year have been because of hot days and chilly nights as pollen release is temperature controlled to some extent. The temperature has to be above 13deg at night for good pollination.
The last few nights have been warmer ( at least here they have) so things should improve......fingers crossed.

[SG6]

Not disagreeing but I wouldn't have thought that tom's were built for "wind" pollination. The flowers face down and so making it less probable. Grasses that are wind pollinated have a different flower arrangement and orientation to maximise pollination.

Self pollinating OK , it is just the method strikes me a odd.

[peapod]

Im thinking the same as mum, its been a funny old year for my toms, most didnt even germinate, whereas last year they virtually 'grew themselves' (if you know what I mean). Now the nicer weather has kicked in,so have my toms. I always put them outside on a nice warm day however (container grown)

[lightyears]

cool. i will pass this info on,

on a side note mine seem to be fine, have some good toms set

[peapod]

Tell him good luck Ligthyears 

[mumofstig]

Not disagreeing but I wouldn't have thought that tom's were built for "wind" pollination. The flowers face down and so making it less probable. Grasses that are wind pollinated have a different flower arrangement and orientation to maximise pollination.
Self pollinating OK , it is just the method strikes me a odd.

Toms were 'built' for bee pollination and pollen release is a response to the vibrations of a buzzing bee To mimic this without the bee tapping the cane starts the vibration...... e voila!

[devondave]

I've been told that if you get one of those little water mist sprayers and spray the tom plant then that will do the trick, i've just started using a 40ft pollytunnel, I get bees in but have started to mist spray the toms as well.

Devondave