This post is about my previous crop of mini roma and cherry tomatoes. My November Update posted in early December was the last time I wrote about them so I’ll now write about how they turned out.
I let both varieties grow for about 8 months from sowing their seeds in August and September 2007 until harvesting the last of their tomatoes in April and May 2008.
Here are photos of the flowering mini roma plants (left) and cherry tomato plants (right) taken on 13th December:
Unfortunately on this same day I noticed that the few small green roma tomatoes that had been growing on one of the three plants had started to develop slightly darkened areas containing some blackish spots on their bases i.e. the stigma ends. After web searching I discovered that the tomatoes had Blossom End Rot (BER) and once they show signs of this physiological disorder they have to be discarded. Apparently it is a symptom of calcium deficiency.
A few more tomatoes on the other two plants were also lost to BER before I found a solution. Completely changing the Hyponex nutrient solution on a weekly basis but definitely no later than the ninth day resulted in no further losses.
Roma tomatoes are the most susceptible to BER so they’re not a good choice for the first time tomato grower.
I was over zealous in my pruning, another beginner’s mistake, and this could have been a contributing factor.
Another problem I faced was the browning of the edges of the roma and, to a lesser extent, the cherry tomato plants’ leaves. After browning the leaves then became brittle. My solution for the BER didn’t make any difference to this second problem and ultimately I never found a remedy but the cherry tomato plants did still yield a reasonable harvest.
Photos of a fruiting mini roma plant (left) and cherry tomato plant (right) taken on 25th January 2008:
At the time of investigating this second problem I did wonder if chlorosis was the problem but now I am pretty sure it was either a lack of calcium (which ties-in with the BER) or salt toxicity i.e. salt build-up in the growing medium.
No active ventilation was used with the tomato plants and airflow was limited so insufficient transpiration may have been the cause if the problem was a lack of calcium.
BTW, I have started using a small fan on my latest crops.
Cool daylight CFL’s were used throughout the various stages of growth even though they are best suited for vegetative growth. They lack sufficient red in their spectrum to provide the best conditions for flowering and fruiting. I hope to remedy this situation for my next crop and guess that the correct lighting should shorten the time to harvest.
The one part ‘Hyponex High Grade liquid nutrient’ was the only concentrated liquid nutrient that could be used in a hydroponic system that I could find locally. In concentrated form, two and three part hydroponic liquid nutrients seem to be preferred due to the possibility of mixing them together in ratios better targeted to a particular plant type and at a particular stage in it’s growth, when creating the nutrient solution.
Certain required chemicals when mixed together in high concentrations can react to create a less beneficial concentrated nutrient. I guess that to still remain reasonably effective, one part nutrients must either add additional chemicals to stop or at least greatly reduce this negative reaction or use different chemicals (or forms of the commonly used chemicals) than is usual but with an end result that is similar to a solution made from a two or more part liquid nutrient.
Due to the feeling that a one part liquid nutrient is a sort of compromise, when I was recently abroad I purchased a good quality two part liquid nutrient. In the near future I’ll test both nutrients side by side when growing loose leaf lettuce to find out if there’s any difference in growth rates etc.
Here is a photo of the same cherry tomato plant as above but taken a couple of weeks later in mid February and a mini roma tomato that was harvested on 17th March 2008:
Now the important figures of how many tomatoes were harvested!
Clearly I had serious problems with the three mini roma plants, the worst being the BER, so by the time I removed the last of the plants I had only harvested a total of 7 tomatoes! That was a lot of effort for minimal reward.
On the other hand, even though both types of tomato plants had suffered from the second problem of browning leaf edges, I was able to harvest a total of 38 tomatoes from the three cherry tomato plants.
It seems that roma tomato plants are not easy to grow in a small indoors hydroponic system and as I prefer a tomato that can be eaten either raw or cooked, which isn’t really the case with romas, I won’t be growing them again.
I will grow cherry tomato plants again but next time it will be a shorter, semi-determinate variety as, even with numerous prunings, the indeterminate variety easily grew taller than my 1.35 metre high lighting/plant support frame 🙂
[…] when we were in London we went to see GroWell Hydroponics Ltd in Fulham. As mentioned in my “Tomato Update” post, I purchased a two part liquid nutrient as this was something that I hadn’t been […]
I’m really glad I found your blog. I’m starting some indoor tomatoes in dirt right now (I had some earlier failures in hydroponics) and I want to have another try at the hydroponics.
You did really well I’d say for the first time out of the gate. All I got were some sickly (although big) plants and no tomatoes.
I too tried a Roma for one my first plants (it’s still growing in an upside-down planter I made outside) but it hasn’t even set any fruit.
When I get a chance to update my blog I’ll detail what I’ve tried and what I’m doing. We can compare notes and try to avoid each other’s mistakes.