Ya gotta love experiments. My Toms, peppers, cabbage, eggplant varieties will leave my wimpy 400 watt as soon as the good weather arrives. That may put me at a plant stress issue. Basically, nothing is a given for everyones crops and or procedures. It is however a good learning curve Good luck on your experiment.

I'm gonna go with 37 Roma Tomatoes.

Good Luck!

Generally, here is what I have read about tomato yields. Of course, it will vary depending on the variety, growing prowess, weather (or lighting!) conditions, soil (growing medium), niuts.

Upper limit: 40 pounds
Extremely good: 35
Very good: 30
Good: 25
Not so good: 20
Poor: less than 20

Last year, I got 750 pounds from about 45 plants but of those, only maybe 20 were decent plants - some (that I will not be growing this year) contributed 10 pounds or less. Plus, thanks to the cool, very wet July, I lost probably 50 pounds due to rotting, creatures taking a bite and other causes. Plus, I did not add a bit of fertilizers once I planted them.

Mike

Sounds great! I'd like to try and clarify a bit. The 750lbs is in the dirt outside? How long was the growing season?

Also, the numbers in the list, they're per month or per season?

Thanks.

brian

Sounds great! I'd like to try and clarify a bit. The 750lbs is in the dirt outside? How long was the growing season?

Also, the numbers in the list, they're per month or per season?

Thanks.

brian

...an ignorant question from me... is that per plant???

I don't think it's an ignorant question... or maybe I'm just as ignorant. :-) I'm just trying to figure out per plant per month in an environment where the growing season never ends. (under a grow light in the basement) So I guess what you could get in a typical august per plant would be a good number.

LOL thanks Brian. As I said before, I am going into this endeavor as a newbie not only to hydroponics but in ANY kind of gardening. Houseplants are about as close as I've gotten! So I literally have no clue!

Those were in dirt, and in the season. Of cours e, the amount per plan t varies greatly but if it is an indeterminate, I would expect 2.5 pounds per plan t per week.

Can't say for sure but I presume it will take a good knowledge of plan t management to keep the plan t flowering all year. Some sources suggest the total frui t weight a plan t will provide is fixed in its genes and while it can vary a bit based on several factors, it is still going to probably max out at about 50 pounds. An option that may be viable, and I am trying this now, is to take a good size sucker from a productive plan t, and grow it. I have a couple of plan(ts) that have set frui t in five weeks.

HTH,

Mike

Thanks Mike. I have four types of tomatoes ready to go. My hyrdoponics goodies are showing up this weekend. For now, I have just florescent lights. But I hope to be switching to the big guns within a month or two.

There's a youtube video showing a group of tomato plants winding around a structure. They look huge. It looks like they've been growing for a while.

brian