Key management points during the tomato color-turning stage, remember these precautions
Tomato is a common vegetable in our daily life; it is both a vegetable and a fruit. During the tomato color-turning stage, its skin gradually matures from green. If management is improper at this stage, it will cause tomatoes to form blotchy faces. And if you want tomatoes to color evenly and improve their marketability, there are several points to note in management. Let's take a look together below.
1. Temperature regulation
Many vegetable growers believe that raising the temperature can promote the speed of tomato coloring. This reasoning is not wrong, because tomato fruits gradually mature from bottom to top. If the temperature of the entire greenhouse is changed just for the fruits on one truss, doing so often does more harm than good. If the temperature inside the greenhouse remains too high for a long time, it will not only cause the plants to grow leggy, but also cause serious flower and fruit drop. Therefore, during the tomato color-turning stage, temperature regulation should focus on the overall situation and just be kept the same as usual; there is no need for special management.
2. Avoid excessive leaf thinning
Tomatoes need sufficient light during the color-turning stage, and the leaves around the fruit undoubtedly affect its light penetration and air movement, so they should be removed in time. Although doing so is beneficial to fruit coloring, it also has its drawbacks. Although removing a large number of leaves can enhance light transmittance, with fewer leaves, the photosynthesis of the plant's leaves is also weakened. Without synthesizing enough nutrients, it is very easy to cause premature aging of the plant, and after the leaf-to-fruit ratio is unbalanced, the impact on yield is also relatively large. Therefore, during the tomato color-turning stage, pay attention to reasonable leaf thinning. Generally, it is only necessary to remove the yellow leaves, old leaves, and diseased leaves in the lower part; do not thin leaves excessively.
3. Increase potassium fertilizer application
Potassium fertilizer can promote fruit expansion and is beneficial to fruit coloring; there is no doubt about this. However, after potassium fertilizer is applied to the soil, its fertilizer effect takes effect relatively slowly. Applying potassium fertilizer by flushing during the fruit coloring stage has little effect. Therefore, it should be applied by flushing in advance or applied according to a planned fertilization schedule. Under normal circumstances, the base fertilizer before planting should contain sufficient potassium fertilizer. After entering the young fruit stage, potassium fertilizer should be applied in combination with watering, or foliar spraying should be provided to supplement the potassium fertilizer needed by the plant,
4. Disease control must be early
Tomatoes have fewer diseases in the early growth stage. The main diseases to control are early blight and gray mold. Early blight, also called target spot, can infect stems, leaves, and fruits. In the later stage, it often causes plant leaves to wither and die, branches to break, and fruits to drop prematurely, causing great harm. When sowing, choose varieties with strong disease resistance, disinfect the seeds before sowing, and at the same time carry out reasonable crop rotation. It can be controlled with thiophanate-methyl, difenoconazole, and flusilazole, which should be used alternately or in compound formulations. Gray mold mainly harms fruits and can also infect stems and leaves. In severe cases, it can cause one third of the fruits to rot. To control gray mold, start with the environment, ventilate scientifically, and reduce the incidence of disease. When disease occurs, it can be controlled with procymidone, thiophanate-methyl, and iprodione.
The above is an introduction to the precautions for tomato color turning. We hope it can help you. If you want to learn more related knowledge, please follow us, and we will continue to update related content.