In the short summer conditions characteristic of the middle zone, many fruits on tomatoes do not have time to fully ripen. And it doesn’t matter whether your tomatoes grow in the garden or in a greenhouse. Today, there are drugs that accelerate maturation. However, their application in the form of root and foliar treatments can provoke the accumulation of harmful substances in the fruit pulp.
Experienced gardeners, who fundamentally do not use synthetic preparations when growing environmentally friendly vegetable crops, know working methods to speed up fruit filling. Before using them, the plantings should be treated one last time with an iodine solution from a garden spray bottle.
You can use a working solution of alcohol tincture of iodine (5%), dissolving 25-30 drops of the medicine in 10 liters of water. Or you can use a solution of the drug “Lugol” (1 teaspoon of the product per 5 liters of water). Iodine stimulates fruit filling processes and helps improve the biochemical composition of the pulp. In addition, such spraying will protect the plantings from an outbreak of late blight.
In order for your tomatoes to start turning red, yellow, orange or purple, you should apply the following agricultural practices:
1.Stop fertilizing and watering.
In the absence of nutrients supplied by moisture, the plant experiences stress. It is under these conditions that tomatoes begin to turn red en masse or acquire a different color characteristic of a given variety.
2. Removing growth points.
A month before the end of the growing season, the apical shoots are removed from both indeterminate and bush tomatoes. The plant minimizes the production of auxins and triggers the production of phytohormone, in particular ethylene, which is responsible for the reddening of the fruit.
3. Trimming excess leaves.
Leaf blades are a kind of “depot” of nutrients that are spent on gaining fruit volume. By removing the lower leaves and breaking off the upper leaves in half, you can deprive the tomatoes of nutrition. Under stress conditions, fruits that have not even plumped up to the technical size of the variety begin to turn red en masse directly on the plant. Then there is no need to pick them and ripen them on the windowsill.
4. Root tearing.
Another way to create stressful conditions for the bushes. 3 weeks before the last harvest, the bushes are slightly pulled out, undermining the roots. As in the previous case, the tomatoes are rebuilt and begin to produce ethylene, which is responsible for acquiring the color of the fruit.
Ripening indoors
The same fruits that did not ripen before the onset of cold weather can ripen on their own after harvesting. The fruits picked from the bushes are laid out in a single layer in a warm and dark room. And for accelerated filling, they use either overripe apples, or banana peels, or ripe tomatoes, which release volatile ethylene, activating the processes of photosynthesis in green fruits. Apples, ripe tomatoes and banana peelings are placed interspersed with the ripening tomatoes.
In this way, you can ensure the maturation of all ovaries formed during the warm season. Good harvests of vegetables at your dacha plot!
