This year's tomato season in the hotbed is disappointing for me. I managed to reduce the humidity to a reasonable degree, but the improvement in flower pollination did not. Just like last year, in May, I will only harvest the tomatoes that have developed from flowers pollinated at home in the window. The real harvest will not begin until mid-June.
I was looking for information why this is the case and I found this on the University of Florida website:
Low temperature: Interference with the growth of pollen tubes prevents normal fertilization. The pollen may even become sterile, causing blossoms to drop. Tomato fruit will not set until nighttime temperature is above 55oF for at least 2 nights in a row.
Too bad I didn't know that before. I could have taken some action. There's nothing left for me to wait for one more year. What do I do?
1. As soon as I harvest all the tomatoes, I reconstruct the whole hotbed, mainly adjust the south-facing wall. Under the ground, I will build a wall of heat-storing material (fealite used in electrical storage heaters) and paint it black. Above-ground part of building plywood I lined with polystyrene from outside and painted white from inside. I add a foil to the windows to reduce the heat loss at night.
2. Two of the four windows will install automatic window opening when the temperature rises above 35 ° C. This will make me not to needlessly cool down the hotbed at night and overheat during the day.
3. I install a solar fan in the hotbed.
Vladimír
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