Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey can anyone out there in AP land help? My tomato blossoms are snapping off therefore not fruiting up as they should, do they need potassium, iron chelates or more seasol? This system is my first and been up and running about 6 weeks. Have 6 Barra that appear healthy as ; ammonia is down, nitrites are down and nitrates about 10 with a ph of 7.5. also having trouble getting mint to grow in a floating bed (third attempt at watercress appears successful)

Have you got shade cloth over the system? If not then the hot temps will cause blossum drop big time. You can also try tapping some pollen out of a likely looking flower mid morning onto a pinky, and then dabbing the pollen on the stamens of other flowers.

Haven't got shade cloth over the system but the plants get afternoon shade. The weather here has been fairly low not to many hot days at all but always thought that "tommies" needed full sun. Read somewhere that the plants are probably lacking something.

heres some options.....1.temp to high[85 days] or low [55 to 70 at night] ...2. lack of pollination.....3. nitrogen to high or low ......4. humidity to high or low [40-70%].....5. stress from insects or disease.....6. to many blossoms , some will fall off if the plant doesn't get enough nutes for them all to set fruit.....good luck...

can't help you with the tomatoes but I my mint is growing well. I started with a sprig from a Vietnamese pho takeaway lunch, put it in the growbed until it formed nice roots then transferred it to a floating bed. The mint they use is spearmint I think not peppermint.
my tomatoes didn't do well for several months also, they probably just don't do well in new systems perhaps.

I had the same when the system was young. Its cause a lack of some of nutrient - pothasium, phosphorus, trace elements or else, take some pics that helps to solve it.

Doesnt have to be hot. Tomato pollen will burn at 30c and in the sun it gets to that temp easy.
It must have been the poms or northen us folk that said that tomatoes need full sun. Hell, I even here it on BHG and other shows and it makes me shudder
Tomatoes need warmth to grow well, and warm nights for the fruit to ripen, but full sun is a bad thing in my book.
Cherry tomatoes are the exception here and would set fruit in the Saharan desert

Going to put a bit of shade over the "toms" then see what happens, might give them a bit of potasium as well, only checking the water once a week now as giving myself ulcers at any little change, if nitrates are up will work on another GB even if it's only small. Got cherry tomatoes growing feral in the dirt garden they were self sown so seem to be immune to any disease or nemitoads, not complaining though as they're tasty lil' suckers!!
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Blue

i just harvested well over a kilo of wet mint herb and is hanging and drying since yesterday... im pretty sure i remember someone saying it grow like a weed in AP and i can confirm that yes it does... i have been hit and miss with tommies tho i have beefsteaks that are growing huge green and falling off rotten from the inside, cherry tomatoes that i would get a punnet a day for a while and i have grosse lisse giving me 2 small tomatoes a day...
maybe its strain of tomato?

Keep in mind that I dont know what I'm talking about, but I think I read somewhere that if they are rotting from the bottom it means a calcium deficiency.

I think it was the BYAP crew who mentioned adding shell grit to a system because of .... memory... perhaps "bottom end rot" Do a search for "bottom end rot".

But if its before the fruit even forms I'd say it's pollen related.

Dress up as a bee and go crazy.

I keep a cotton bud in a small jar and pretend to bee a be every now and again and it seems to work.

Well there's some shade over tommies, have given it a light dose of Chelated Iron & Seasol--checked the water before this and appear to have nil ammonia; nil nitrite and 10 of nitrate. Fish still appear to be "happy chappies" so we'll see what eventuates!!
Blue

Too hot or too cool temps are probably to blame. My tommies (and peppers) start dropping their blossoms when the temps become consistently hot here. I let the plants just do their thing through our long summer, and once fall starts to set in they set a mass of fruit.

Hi Fish2veg, I too am having troubles with my toms and am experiencing regular temps above 30 Deg so I'm going to give a little extra shade cloth a run. Recently I found this link " http://www.scribd.com/doc/7357931/Organic-Tomato-Magic " which i found quite interesting. Don't know how true it is, but it seems to have alot of info that makes good sense. I've started following a few of the directions and eager to see what happens.