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In Today’s post, we will look into 10 important causes of Premature Bud, Flower or Fruit drop off. You can easily diagnose the cause and treat this problem of bud blast accordingly. Plus an extremely useful bonus tip in the end that can put an end to this problem.
Every single bud in your garden is like a little promise from your plants. But, when these buds collapse and fall off for no reason, it may bring tears into gardener’s eyes.
So, What is Bud Blast? Bud blast is a term used to describe flowers that have prematurely aborted before blooming or soon after blooming, that means premature bud drop off. These also apply to vegetable and fruits: flower, bud or fruit drop off.
What Causes this premature Bud Drop in Flowers?
The good news is that the most common factors involved in this bud blast are external factors and hence can be easily diagnosed and treated.
- Temperature Extremes – Extremes in temperature can significantly influence the bud development, flowering and fruit formation and development. When temperatures fluctuate whether too high as in summer season or too low as in winter and frost, the plants get stressed and may respond by dropping their buds and flowers in an attempt to survive or conserve the overall plant energy.
Now the Solution to this problem: There are many solutions to this problem. Like, if its extreme summer, you can install shade nets or green nets of at least 50% to protect the plants from too hot sun. You can use any thin cloth to give them the filtered light if you do not have green net. You can also mist them with water atleast once daily especially in the noon sun.
If its extreme winter, Moving your plants may correct the problem, you can start bring them indoors or you can cover them with polythene covers by small making holes in them or you can also use some support sticks or a garden trellis and then wrap around with a blanket or a polythene cover to provide the correct temperature as required, specially in night time. - Water stress: Improper watering causes a great deal of stress to plants. Both Over-watering and Under-watering can cause this stress to plants. Under watering may cause plants to redirect water from enlarging buds to the food-producing areas of the plant which results in shrinking of buds, flowers and fruits which eventually dry and fall off. This is an act of self-preservation by the plant. And Over watering often leads to root rot, or other fungal infections that may destroy the developing flower buds.
Now The Solution to this problem: Always water the plants when the top one or two inches of the soil is dry. Best is Finger dip method to check moisture of top 1 or 2 inches of soil. You can also add a thick layer of mulch on the top soil to keep moisture levels more even.
- Humidity – Insufficient humidity can interfere with proper bud development. Also when humidity fluctuates considerably then it will lead to buds that drop off. If you want to increase humidity, you can make a humidity tray and place your container on this. Simplest humidity tray consists of some small pebbles in a tray filled with water, which can increase the humidity around the plant.
- Pest Attack: Pests also can cause bud drop in most plants. Insects like Aphids are small, sucking insects that will cluster on the new growths and buds will cause damage to the developing flowers or fruit which eventually fall off. Most of these pests are easily visible and can be easily diagnosed, and controlled by spraying a pesticide weekly for treatment and once in 15 days for prevention. Neem oil is the gold standard for organic gardening. It’s a broad spectrum natural pesticide. 5 to 10 ml neem oil with few drops of liquid soap will solve this problem.
- Improper Fertilizing: Nutrient deficiency is a common problem. It can be due to deficiency of both major nutrients – that’s NPK – nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and also minor or trace nutrients like iron, copper, boron, sulphur, etc. It varies from plant to plant. Feeding your plant with a balance fertilizer containing all these elements will solve the problem. You can check how to prepare this type of cocktail mixed fertilizer here.
- Inadequate Pollination: Insufficiently pollinated young fruit will be shed. This can be caused by an inadequate presence of pollinator insects like bees and butterflies during the blooming period of your plants. You may encourage a greater population of bees and other beneficial insects by companion-planting roses and other garden plants that will attract them and alos avoid using chemical pest control sprays which can drive away or harm these pollinators.
- Wrong Lighting – This is also connected with temperature extremes. Light has a direct effect on how well the plant can produce food and survive. Often, buds fail when high light plants are in low light settings and vice versa, that is plants accustomed to low light situations may overheat in direct sun, causing buds to fall off. Move these plants to more appropriate lighting conditions. One hint here is: Avoid direct sunlight exposure during noon – that is when the sun is at its peak, especially in hot summer season.
- Young Plants – Younger plants often lack the root structure to support blooms and this might lead to aborted blossoms. So when you see young plants producing flowers, then simply pinch these off to divert plants energy to growth of foliage and branching rather than fruit products at such a young age.
- Transplant / Repotting Shock: Recent Repotting or Transplantation is another reason. What you can do in this case is, pick any blooms off the plant to allow the root system to develop better before permitting it to bloom again. You can also water the plant with Epsom salt solution once after repotting or transplanting. 1 teaspoon Epsom salt per litre of water is the recommended dosage. Another common mistake people make is immediately repot a newly purchased plant. You need to keep it away from hot sun and allow it get accustomed to its new home and then repot carefully.
- Transportation of the plant: which can be another reason that can be considered for buds falling off because of weakening due to the stress of transportation. Like for instance, you are buying a plant full of flowers and buds from a nursery or from online and while on its journey to new home, it may drop its flowers and buds. This is rather a mechanical cause.
Now, 2 extremely important bonus tips:
Firstly, Constraint Space Garden: using small containers or poor spacing between plants to grow plants that need larger space or large soil volume.
Secondly, In vegetable gardening especially while growing climbers or creepers, that need support. You must never take the plant too high, like not more than 7-8 feet. If you take them too high transport of water and nutrients against gravity will be difficult and this can result in flower and fruit drops. A slope or arch like support like this, can easily solve this problem.
