While tomato flowers are typically wind pollinated, and occasionally by bees, the lack of air movement or low insect numbers can inhibit the natural pollination process. In these situations, you may need to hand pollinate tomatoes to ensure pollination takes place so your tomato plants bear fruit.
Tomatoes are self-pollinating, as flowers are equipped with both male and female parts. One tomato plant is capable of producing a crop of fruit on its own, without the need of planting another one. Nonetheless, nature doesn’t always cooperate.
While reading we ran into the inquiry “Do Tomatoes need a pollinator to produce fruit?”.
One way to think about this is since each tomato flower contains male parts, it can produce its own pollen. It does not need pollen from another flower on the same plant or a nearby plant. Since each tomato flower also contains female parts, it is capable of producing fruit, as long as proper pollination occurs.
You could be wondering “Do Tomatoes need to be pollinated to produce seeds?”
One source claimed that all plants, including the tomato, must be pollinated to produce seeds. The tomato has an advantage over many other plants – it is self-pollinating and has ‘perfect flowers’. In horticulture, a ‘perfect flower’ does not refer to the dimensions or color of a bloom. It means the flower has both male and female parts and can reproduce by itself.
The problem in a greenhouse is a lack of wind. Without pollination, the tomato blossoms drop off before setting fruit. Also know, do tomatoes need to be pollinated?
Do tomato plants self-pollinate?
Tomato plants are self-pollinating, which means that a single tomato plant can set fruit by itself. A tomato plant does not need other tomato plants nearby to pollinate its flowers and produce fruit. This is because a tomato flower is perfect, meaning that it contains both male and female parts.
The most usefull answer is, a self-pollinating plant does not need other plants of the same species (or any other species) nearby in order to pollinate and grow fruit. On a self-pollinating plant, each flower contains both male and female parts. Tomato plants pollinate by autogamy, meaning the male part (anthers) sends pollen to the female part (stigma) in the same flower.
Wind helps to pollinate tomatoes, even in the absence of pollinators such as bees. The method is similar: the wind causes tomato flowers to move, and that stimulation causes the male part of the flower to release pollen onto the female part of the flower. Looks like the wind is really going here!
Why are my tomato plants not pollinating?
If your tomato plant has lots of flowers, but no fruit, then extreme temperature or humidity may be preventing pollination. High humidity means that the male part of a tomato flower cannot release its pollen. Low humidity means that the pollen will not stick to the female part of the flower.
Do bees pollinate tomatoes?
Out of all the pollinators (including birds and butterflies), bees are the most obvious. Bees can help to improve pollination of tomato flowers, but they are not strictly necessary. When a bee touches a flower, its vibrating wings cause the flower to shake.