What causes tomatoes not to grow bigger?
When growing tomatoes, you often run into all kinds of problems, but the one that gives growers the biggest headache is tomatoes not growing bigger, with very small fruit. This directly affects their economic value and returns. And apart from nutrient deficiency, it is hard to think of other causes, so people often apply fertilizer and then are at a loss what to do. In fact, there are quite a few reasons why tomatoes do not grow bigger, not just insufficient nutrients. Let us take a look at the details right away.
1. Soil fertility
Loam soil holds fertilizer best, sandy loam is medium, but sandy soil loses fertilizer and water very easily, and in the end this leads to a lack of soil fertility. So for planting you can use loam land or sandy loam land, do not use sandy land. If you do not have more land, you can improve the soil by adding humus soil and loam. Insufficient soil fertility will lead to no growth.
2. Improper fertilization
During the color-changing stage of tomato fruit, mainly low-nitrogen fertilizer and high-potassium fertilizer are used. The chlorophyll contained in the fruit should decompose at this time, but it does not decompose because too much nitrogen fertilizer is used, so the chlorophyll does not break down and lycopene cannot form. Potassium deficiency also has an effect: photosynthesis declines, color is affected, metabolism is very slow, and color change is affected. In this case it is best to use a high-potassium water-soluble fertilizer, and the amount of potassium fertilizer used should be twice that of nitrogen fertilizer. You can also apply fertilizer outside the roots by spraying potassium dihydrogen phosphate to supplement potassium.
3. Low temperature inside the greenhouse
If it is off-season greenhouse cultivation in winter, the outside temperature is too low, which affects the temperature inside. Also, you cannot ventilate often, the air is poor, and winter sunlight is not strong. After the fruit sets, it does not grow easily and grows slowly. For this, it is best to keep it above 25 degrees during the day and above 15 degrees at night, and you need to use electricity for heating. When it is clear, open the skylight properly for ventilation.
4. Uneven growth
It may be that vegetative growth and reproductive growth are unbalanced. For example, when fruiting, the branches and leaves grow excessively and too vigorously, which consumes too many nutrients, so the fruit does not get enough nutrients and cannot compete with the branches and leaves, which leads to very small fruit. In this situation, you need to pinch the growing tip of the main vine, remove side branches, and prune some weak branches and branches without fruit. Growth may then be much better. If too much fruit has set, you can thin some of it out appropriately.
After tomatoes set fruit, if the fruit does not grow bigger and grows slowly and not noticeably, it is mostly because of poor nutrition, insufficient fertility, and improper fertilization. There are also some special situations that have an effect.