Hydroponic tomato growing

[Bevans18]

Hello all - I'm looking to find the best way to start and scale up indoor hydroponic tomato growing. All ideas are welcome! I'm a Chemist so I am especially interested in proper equipment technology, nutrients, humidity, and grow light technology that has been successful for growing the sweetest red tomato. Additionally, a highly productive tomato plant is a real plus. Thanks for your help! Kind regards, Bill

[RootLoops]

look into dutch buckets, they scale up pretty well

[Cole_Robbie]

Dutch buckets are a type of recirculating deep water culture, which works very well for big plants. My DWC system just pumps the reservoir solution into a pvc manifold with holes to let it spray back down. It's very simple and works very well.

I have also built systems similar to the "aeroflow." People call the aeroflow NFT, but the strict definition of NFT is like the systems Farmtek sells to grow lettuce. The aeroflow is kind of a hybrid between NFT and DWC. If you build an aeroflow for typical indeterminate tomatoes, 4" pvc pipe is too small, so are house gutters. You want 6" pvc or the square white vinyl fence post covers, or else the roots clog it up.

General Hydroponics Flora series is the most common line of nutrients, and a good starting point. If you want to be precise, it helps to start with RO filtered water. I have also had good luck with fish tank water.

People argue on here about the best light. All lights will have shortcomings when you analyze the spectrum graph, but the reality in practice is that they still work. People report good results with metal halides, as well as HPS. I'm still skeptical of LED lighting for anything but seedlings. My best pick would be to use both a metal halide and an HPS bulb at the same time to balance out your spectrum. Hortilux has a reputation for being the best brand. Optilume isn't bad, either. You want bulbs that are specifically made for growing plants.

I really like hydoponics, and I was hoping that my spring hydro tomatoes would come in faster than the soil ones in the high tunnel, but they didn't, so I have abandoned the project for now. I want to build an insulated shed inside my greenhouse and grow over the winter. The heat of the light should be enough to keep it warm.

[Bevans18]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Dutch buckets are a type of recirculating deep water culture, which works very well for big plants. My DWC system just pumps the reservoir solution into a pvc manifold with holes to let it spray back down. It's very simple and works very well.

I have also built systems similar to the "aeroflow." People call the aeroflow NFT, but the strict definition of NFT is like the systems Farmtek sells to grow lettuce. The aeroflow is kind of a hybrid between NFT and DWC. If you build an aeroflow for typical indeterminate tomatoes, 4" pvc pipe is too small, so are house gutters. You want 6" pvc or the square white vinyl fence post covers, or else the roots clog it up.

General Hydroponics Flora series is the most common line of nutrients, and a good starting point. If you want to be precise, it helps to start with RO filtered water. I have also had good luck with fish tank water.

People argue on here about the best light. All lights will have shortcomings when you analyze the spectrum graph, but the reality in practice is that they still work. People report good results with metal halides, as well as HPS. I'm still skeptical of LED lighting for anything but seedlings. My best pick would be to use both a metal halide and an HPS bulb at the same time to balance out your spectrum. Hortilux has a reputation for being the best brand. Optilume isn't bad, either. You want bulbs that are specifically made for growing plants.

I really like hydoponics, and I was hoping that my spring hydro tomatoes would come in faster than the soil ones in the high tunnel, but they didn't, so I have abandoned the project for now. I want to build an insulated shed inside my greenhouse and grow over the winter. The heat of the light should be enough to keep it warm.

Hi Robbie. Thanks for the starting helpful hints. Have you ever experienced any pests or insects that seem to plague hydroponic plants vs. soil? Have you seen any nutrient growth curve studies the identify essential nutrients and how to test for them?
Thanks
Bevans18

[Cole_Robbie]

For both your questions, I think it's the same as growing in soil. A lot of information crosses over to hydro growing quite well. The plant will require the same nutrients and get the same bugs regardless of it being hydro or soil. If I were you, I would just use over the counter nutrients for your first few crops before you start tinkering with the mix. Spend your time and money building up your equipment like lights, pumps, timers, fans and blowers. All that stuff is expensive.

[HiPoha]

I started my hydroponic garden just last month and am happy with the results so far. It is great as plant starters. I have had nice healthy tomato plants to transplant into dirt. I am trying to get optimum use out of my three trays, growing some leafy veggies as well as pepper and eggplants for transplanting. I suppose the right nutrient solution determine how well and how fast the plants grow, which is something that I am still testing out for myself. Eventually, I'd like to mix my own nutrient and fertilizer which should drop cost down. I used a product called CNS17 for this first crop. I added some kelp solution lately for nutrient enrichment. The step arrangement allows one pump to circulate all three trays. Top tray draining into the second tray, second tray draining into the third before draining back to the pump.

[RootLoops]

those look great! if you are growing for profit then you'll eventually want to learn to mix your own but if you are growing for food where cost isn't that big an issue i highly recommend the Ph Perfect line by Advanced Nutrients. a lot of people dislike advanced nutrients but i've been using them for a while now and i'm sold. the price is a little higher than others but i've found that i can grow vegetable plants with a third of the recommended dosage on the bottle which makes it way more affordable. plus i'm able to go almost three weeks without a nutrient change(just topping off when the water level drops a little). i've been on a one litre set of Sensi Grow A+B for a good while now, since february i think, and i've just used about one third of the bottles.

this is all i do, no meters, no pH up and down, no testing ppm's or specific nutrient levels, water temperature has made little difference(i also use actinovate to prevent root rot). i just fill the res with water, i use plain tap water, usually about pH 6ish but i haven't checked it in a long time, around 150 ppm. then i add either .5 ml per litre for new seedlings, 1-1.5 ml per litre for ones with five leaf sets all the way up to ready to fruit. then after that you use the ph perfect sensi bloom at about the same ratios. then i just forget about it other than to top it off if needed until time to change the nutrients again. i think there may be other brands with the same technology so you may have options but if you are wondering if they are worth the money they definitely are. soon i'll have a few dutch buckets ready for tomatoes outside under the cover and i'm gonna keep notes on how much of the ph perfect nutes it takes to grow a set of tomato plants from start to finish and then figure up the value of the crop to see how it works out

the pests are the same, look out for gnats especially and root rot can be a problem so i recommend using actinovate with each res change and the use of an enzyme product to break down dead roots and things that can end up souring the roots.

[Bevans18]

Thanks RootLoops! Sounds like you've got the chemistry working well. Have you found that there are some essential chemistry probes and assays that would be helpful especially during development of optimum growing conditions?
Kind regards,
Bill

[NewCreature]

Bill,

Sorry for the reply to a pretty dead discussion, but I was wondering if you ever got your hydroponic system setup? I grew 32 plants in dutch buckets last year and hope to double it this year. If you got your rig setup or are still researching, I would be happy to share what I did.

Mike (aka NewCreature)
<><

[Bevans18]

Hi Mike,
I've attached a couple pics of the plants as a few weeks ago but they are doing pretty well with the Better Boy producing about 40 flowers/buds/tomatoes after planting on Oct 22. I expect ripe tomatoes in a couple weeks.
Nutrient solution - FluroDuo A and B, Root Starter additive, and when plants got to flowering stage I switched to Texas Tomato Food
Light - 1000W HPS bulb set at 600 W from a variable ballast which gave enough light at 25-30 moles/m2/day
As plants got bigger i switched to recirculating drip system using a third bucket as nutrient solution reservoir that equilibrates its volume with the other two buckets.

I know I have a lot to learn so please share specifics about your dutch bucket grow experience. I'm currently taking an intensive tomato hydroponic course at Univ of Arizona this week to learn about commercial greenhouse growing of hydroponic tomatoes.
Thanks for the response.
Kind regards,
Bill

[Bluesman]

Hello, I´ve grown chilis and also tomatoes in several hydrosystems. I put some fotos to show how this works. 2013 I started NFT growing and as a starter a growing sequence of Capsicum chinense Bonda ma Jaques. The plant could be a tomato as well.



Germination 2.1.2013



26.1.2013



5.2.2013



15.2.2013



1.3.2013



28.3.2013



1.4.2013 A little problem.



Problem solved.



10.4.2013



4.5.2013



14.5.2013



26.5.2013



7.6.2013



9.7.2013



Some harvest 2.7.2013

Bonda ma Jaques produced 13,5kg of crop. Almost 30lb.

[HiPoha]

Bluesman, that is a fantastic garden and harvest. What are you feeding your plants with?

[Bluesman]

Originally Posted by HiPoha

Bluesman, that is a fantastic garden and harvest. What are you feeding your plants with?

Thank You!

Nothing special, hydro fertilizers. In NFT the plant takes what it needs.
These plants are grown in a 90 litre plaster buckets (about $10 in a hardware store) and the root mass fits on a A4 paper area. The plant itself is several m3 in size. The greenhouse is 4m in height and the plants roam out from the ventilation windows.



Here´s a plant removed in July because I didn´t like its pods taste. The stem is one inch thick.
From the bucket there is a small pump applying the nutrient solution to the other end. When the level where the plant stays is somewhat tilted the flow goes nicely. There is a support for the plant either plywood (not very good) or an polyurethane plate covered with black foundation plastic ( with buttons) and a NFT film. The plant is in rockwool.
The total cost of this system is about $20-25.