Tomato blossoms appearing, then falling off the plant without producing fruit, is one of the most common and frustrating problems in the summer vegetable garden. The plant looks healthy. The flowers look normal. They just drop.
Blossom drop is almost always caused by environmental stress, not disease. Per Missouri Botanical Garden, the primary causes are temperature extremes, high or low humidity, irregular watering, and excess nitrogen. Understanding which factor is causing the drop is necessary for a correct response — because the fixes are different for each cause.
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Why blossoms drop: the mechanism
Tomato and pepper fruit set requires successful pollination and fertilization. Tomato flowers are self-fertile — each flower contains both male and female parts — but the process is sensitive to environmental conditions.
Per Missouri Botanical Garden, pollen viability and release are affected by temperature and humidity. When conditions are outside the optimal range, pollen fails to shed or the pollen tube fails to grow normally, pollination is incomplete, and the plant abscises (drops) the unfertilized flower.
The abscission is the plant's resource management: it does not continue investing in a flower that won't produce a viable fruit.
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