Increasing Tomato Yield | Yara United States (2024)

FAQs

Increasing Tomato Yield | Yara United States? ›

It is important to avoid excessive leaf pruning in high light environments as the crops can be at risk of sunscald. Maintaining a leaf area index of 3 will maximize fruit growth. Hand thinning of tomatoes on the end of a truss ensures more evenly sized, larger fruit.

Damu – For Bigger Fruit

Damu works by helping plants move photosynthates from the leaves where they are made to the fruit. This helps improve size of tomatoes ahead of picking.

Some growers prefer to use a high-phosphorus fertilizer, indicated by a larger middle number. You can also keep things simple with a fertilizer especially formulated for tomatoes – usually with a ratio like 3-4-6 or 4-7-10. Most importantly, don't over-fertilize.

Plant density and spacing are critical to ensure crops make the best use of environmental, especially light conditions, so that tomato yield potentials are reached. Maintenance of optimum soil pH ensures nutrients are readily available. The use of herbicides or cultivation will remove any weed competition.

Pruning, or selectively removing some of the tomato plant growth, can improve harvestable yields and prolong the harvest season. Further, keeping tomato plants off the ground reduces common fungal diseases like early blight, Septoria leaf spot, and anthracnose, and improves fruit quality.

Low nitrogen produces spindly vines that cannot support proper plant development. Fungal problems, such as early blight and Septoria leaf spot, can also prevent high yields as well as high quality fruit, especially during seasons with periods of heavy rainfall.

Tomatoes & Epsom Salt

Ultra Epsom Salt treatments at the beginning of their planting and throughout their seasonal life can help to prevent and remedy magnesium deficiency in your tomato plants. Simply add one or two tablespoons of Epsom salt for tomatoes to the area before planting seeds or transplants.

Coffee grounds contain around 2% nitrogen as well as varying amounts of phosphorus and potassium which are all very important for the growth of tomato plants. By mixing some coffee grounds into the soil below your tomato plants you're introducing these nutrients that the plants need to thrive.

The best fertilizer for tomatoes comes down to preferences. Fish emulsion is a mild, nitrogen rich organic that can be used all season long. If only one type of formulated fertilizer is used, it's best to choose a balanced product such as NPK 10-10-10.

Is 10-10-10 fertilizer good for tomato plants? ›

If your soil is well-balanced and composted, you can use fertilizers with ​​NPK of 4-6-3. If your soil lacks nitrogen, use a more balanced fertilizer, such as a 10-10-10 NPK ratio, when plants are still developing. Opt for a fertilizer with lower nitrogen levels before the plants start fruiting.

An all purpose greenhouse fertilizer, i.e. 20-20-20, is a poor choice for tomatoes. Tomatoes need a grade with much lower nitrogen and much higher potassium, as well as several other essential elements.

Tomato plants have big appetites and need a steady supply of plant food to grow their best. Miracle-Gro® Performance Organic® Edibles Plant Nutrition Granules feeds both your plants and the beneficial microbes in the soil (which help plants take up all the nutrition they need) for up to 6 weeks.

Tomatoes need plenty of room to grow. Commercially, most growers use a two-foot spacing within rows. If you want really large fruit, give them even more room. One of the most common errors by novice gardeners is planting tomato plants too close together.

Compost and composted manure are great additions to the soil for tomatoes and lots of other plants. Compost adds basic nutrients and improves soil structure. Composted manure provides nutrients all season long. Composted manure: This provides a slow release of nutrients over the growing season.

Once you've got a few trusses of green tomatoes on your plants, it's a good idea to strip off some of the excess foliage. This will help the plants to focus on fruit and ripening which might be a good idea if this slightly cooler weather continues, as they may struggle more than usual with ripening!

Topping also allows the plant to send it its energy into the leaves and ripening fruit below, rather than making new leaves and new fruit late in the season. In terms of maximum fruit production over the season, I don't think it matters whether you choose to top & prune out suckers or pinch out the next blossoms.

Called "topping," this type of pruning causes the plant to stop flowering and setting new fruit, and instead directs all sugars to the remaining fruit. This way, the fruit will ripen faster, plus it becomes more likely that the green tomatoes you pick before frost will actually ripen when you bring them indoors.