Adding to my first post - the dark time is needed to complete the cycle of photosynthesis.
Greatgardens, I wish I had the extra heated area to do this experiment again, but our extra room is being used by our son and family. I did an experiment a couple of years ago when the room sat there being unused otherwise. I used 16 hours of light on to 8 hours of darkness. What I saw in the seedlings/plants is that they did grow but not as fast as those that were growing in another room - which I'm going to explain in my reply to what Ted wrote.
Ted, 10 on and 14 off is close to what I have been doing for the past few years. That is generally speaking because some days were 11 on to 13 off, and other days it was 9 on and 15 off - depending on when I woke up and when I turned the lights on and off. In other words, I casually/lazily monitored light to darkness ratios.
Mike, I'm glad to read that the 12 and 12 works for you. To me, it seems like 12 and 12 would work with people's schedules better without it hurting the tomato seedlings/plants. The usage of a timer in all cases would make things easier. I try to keep my house at 74F year round. We as humans like that, and so do tomato plants.
All of what I have written above is about when you have to start tomato seeds inside and raise them inside until planting out time. There are many other variables.
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