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Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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Posted by vrkelley WA (My Page) on Sat, Nov 29, 08 at 12:41
| Reality hits and I'm discovering that my grow lights work best when they are within 6" of the plant. I'm trying to grow a 3-4' Sungold. The plant is already 3" tall.
Can I, place a shortened tomato cage and encourage the plant to grow around the perimiter of the cage, as it reaches almost full circle put a taller cage in and re-tether the plant?
What will happen with the plant sugars, if lower parts of the plant grow horizonatlly AROUND the cage? I'm trying to figure out how to cage the plant with some horizontal so more of the plant receives light on the lower brances (as is it grows bigger).
Setup (it's bright)
2 48" OTT 40W bulbs run 18hrs/day
1 Mylar cover over the top of the light, drops to the floor
Mylar over the dirt of the Sungold and Dwarf
Bnching onion(1Gal)---Red Robin Dwarf (3gal)---SunGold (3gal) |
Follow-Up Postings:
Spectrum, bulb - More Questions
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A. Can't find much information about the OTT light 40W X48" tubes. What sort of spectrum do these provide??
B. Because I'm using the bulbs to raise other stuff besides tomatoes, should I be using a better T-12 bulb? I'm a little under the gun to get this thing to work. The family is already teasing that I'll have to get ALOT of tomatoes to pay for this setup. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| I don't see why it wouldn't work to try to train your plant to grow in a spiral, but I don't know first-hand how that might influence things. But your idea sounds like it should do great. I know what you mean about the teasing, though. It's a small price to pay for the satisfaction of success, though. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| There is a very succesfull technique that has been used for years on the illegal side of the fence that I am trying on tomatoes this year. I posted pics on the tomato forum, but I'll throw some pics here as well. Poultry screen, a frame and a weaving style, running the vines over and under the screen keeps them on the same plane to take max advantage of the light. Supercropping to reduce internodal lengths helps as well, since that generates more flowering points per square foot. Keeping things compact appears to be the key. Now I am doing this for the first time, but techniques are available to help. Good luck and i will post some pics. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Here is my light set-up with one 400w MH. I am adding 2 more 400w HPS to get some tomatoes to start flowering. 
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RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| I'm growing two Green Sausage toms. They are short (2' or less) determinate plants. I'm using a 105 watt, 5000K CFL bulb and a 25 watt, 2300K CFL and today they have six blooms on them. They were moved to hydro as very small seedlings on Nov. 4 and are supposed to take ~ 75 days to maturity. So far it has been 50 days. In the same area (a 34"x28" old armoire) I have two cucumber plants that between them have at least seven cukes ripening. One doesn't need hundreds of watts from expensive bulbs to grow tomatoes. YMMV, Mike |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Point well taken Mike. The screen method I have pictured above was actually developed for floresant bulbs to keep everything on the same plane, and keep lights very close. This avoids the regular tomato heigth problem with floresants. Since I salvaged my lights from a factory switching to T5's for better efficiency I have $0 invested in my expensive bulbs. Since my plants are indeterminate, left to their own devices, they would get quite tall. There are simply methods available to take maximum advantage of floro lights or HID light set-ups to still grow nice indoor tomato, pepper and other light loving varieties. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| I understand. I've got a couple of Siletz toms that are not big enough to put in a hydro unit yet. They are indeterminate and suppose to get about 4' tall. I don't know how the lights will work for them, though I will trim the bottom leaves off and may "top" the plant if it starts getting too tall too early. They are suppose to be a 55-60 mater which means I could have a ripe, red tomato on April Fools Day! Complicating things just a bit, I want to grow some lettuce, broccoli and basil beside the tomatoes and cucumbers. Thankfully, the cukes (Holland Hothouse and Tasty Jade) do not get very tall. Having two areas to grow stuff in will help though. I can start plants every 45 days or so and hopefully have fresh veggies year around! Merry Christmas, Mike |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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Two fluorescent tubes are not sufficient to do a good job, assuming you are going for yield. Rather, I recommend CMH
(Ceramic Metal Halide), which is both full-spectrum and high output. About 50% more efficient than HPS, 100% more efficient than MH. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| >>One doesn't need hundreds of watts from expensive bulbs to grow tomatoes. +1 The problem with the wattage is you can't have the plants too close to the bulb because of the heat. So much light is wasted (probably still true even with mylar). hautions11,
I tried encouraging/binding the vines of a previous plant around the circumference of a tomato cage. Appeared to work UNTIL the vines got bigger. As the vine grew thicker, it seemed to choke itself on the cage. Once the main vine was toast, the plant limped along. The tip grew anyway, but not much else (and no new flowers or fruit). hautions11, I'm wondering if you will encounter the same thing once your vines get bigger. What seemed to work is to have the plant lean toward one side of the pot (staked and supported), then lean toward the other side of the pot (another stake) for a total of 6" of leaning. Vertical height is 21" (not counting the 6" of leaning back and forth), 9 leaf nodes, 3 trusses beginning to bear. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Thanks for the input. I am not sure the vines will be bothered by the poultry netting as they are not directly tied or attached to anything. See pics in our inovative tomato grow thread. This is a first for me so there could be problems as you have ststed. We will see how it goes. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Wattage is not a measure of light, but of energy use. For a given type of light, (HID, CFL, LED) greater wattage will mean more light output, but there's a lot of other variables to consider as well. I've never been able to grow tomatoes with anything less than a HID. You need a LOT of light to produce even a moderate yield. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Gary, I'm having real good success (so far) with a 105 watt (500 watt equivalent) CFL. Mike |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| I'm not really surprised to hear it's possible, I just haven't been able to do it myself but there could've been other factors that led to my previous failures. I've got a HPS now that I use with CFL supplementation and I've got my fingers crossed for some good success. |
RE: Newbie - Best use of light for Tomato?
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| Google 'aerogarden tomatoes' 2x 26w CFLs = quite a few cherry tomatoes if pruned right! Then Google aerogarden strawberries :) |
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