First Tomato Setup

[GpsFrontier]

Hello JHazzardB,
Well first I'm not familiar with using the nutrients you are using, and/or if your mixing them correctly. If I were you I would e-mail the company and ask them their mixing directions for growing tomatoes to be sure (unless it's listed on the container or online). I's possible their not designed (or mixed correctly) for continuously fruiting plants, and are unbalanced or contain too much nitrogen.

Also it looks like your growing 8 plants, and with 12.5 gallons of nutrient solution, that comes out to 1.5 gallons per plant. Your plants don't seem to be drinking to much right now, and that's probably mostly due to your low temperatures. Even so, as the plants get bigger and temps get warmer, they will continue to drink more. The minimum recommended water volume for large plants like tomatoes is 2.5 gallons per plant, and I would double that to 5 gallons per plant. That would be 40 gallons for tomato 8 plants. The larger water volume reduces stress from nutrient concentration fluctuations.

That leads me to another concern. First I wouldn't add full strength nutrient to the reservoir to replace the water the plants drink up. I would either just add fresh water, or if it has been at least a week or more, I would only add a diluted (25-50%) strength back.

Also While going three weeks between nutrient changes should be fine when the plants were half that size, I wouldn't let it go more than 2 weeks at that size, especially with such a small water volume (12.5 gallons). Even with a 40 gallon reservoir, I would probably still change it weekly when the plants get more than another couple of feet bigger.

For now I would probably assume the blossom drop (before they open) is either due to inefficient light, or stress from nutrient solution balance and/or concentrations. Your using HID lighting, and though what you have and how it's placed may be insufficient when the plants get bigger and the top foliage shades the leaves underneath (as long as each bulb is at least 150 watts, 300 total). So that leads me to suspect the nutrient solution first. As I mentioned I would contact the manufacture and verify you are mixing them correctly for continuously fruiting plants like tomato's. Then I would mix a fresh batch each week and fill your current reservoir to 18 gallons. Meanwhile making sure to get a larger reservoir before the plants get much bigger.

P.S.
If you can I would try and get the humidity up as well (into the 50-70% range), and supply some air movement with fans if your not already.

[JHazzardB]

Man I need to post some more pics of everything!

thanks for the detailed response again, GPS!

The nutrients are specifically formulated for tomatoes (I would assume continuously fruiting but I will email and check). I haven't noticed any of the buds towards the top of the plants (Ill call them the newer ones) turning yellow. I did bump up the nutrient strength to about 2.5-2.6. I think they are enjoying that. I've noticed at least one cluster of buds become "longer" and trying to form a stem.

I have automatic fill valves on all my other reservoirs that keep the water level topped off. I guess I'll put one on the tomatoes reservoir tonight. It's less than 5 minutes of trouble and might be beneficial.

On the lights, both the hps and MH lamp are rated at 400W so I would think they would be able to get enough light.

Hopefully I'll get some pictures up later tonight!

[JHazzardB]

Hey GPS, i also forgot to mention that there are TWO plants per bucket... Highly crowded I know. I just want to see how far I can push the limits on space.

Pictures from last night. And I think I almost have a flower ready to open! It might just be my eyes, buy I see a little bit of yellow in there...

[JHazzardB]

For when GPS looks again:

I was mildly freaking out last night. I went to check to reservoir and there was maybe one gallon left in the bottom. I started thinking to myself "GPS was totally right! The plants are drinking so much more water than I thought!" I scrambled and redid the reservoir and got it topped up to 17 gallons, turned the pump on because I had zero idea when the last time the plants had water last, and man were they thirsty! I thought I had left the faucet running somewhere cause I kept hearing water running. I then discovered that one of the drip lines came out of a bucket and was drenching the garage.

I soon put it all together that the plants did not drink 12 gallons or so overnight and that the drip line instead sprayed all over in hopes I would have to mop the garage floor...

Live and learn. I need to find clips to secure the drip lines better.

[JHazzardB]

Well, blossom drop continues. Some of the buds looked like they were going to open to flowers but decided to fall off. I'm suspecting nutrient problems. Although, the plants look nice and healthy!

Background: I'm using Masterblend tomato fertilizer with CaNO3 and MgSO4.
By the directions and labeling online as well as the packaging, it says mix 1 ounce (fertilizer and 1 ounce CaNO3) per 3 gallons. My scale weighs in grams. 1 ounce is about 28.3 grams. I round up to 29. 29 grams per 3 gallons is approximately 9.66 grams a gallon.

I redid the reservoir tonight and filled only to 12.5 gallons (they aren't drinking that quick yet). For the 12.5 gallons, I added 120 grams (12.5 x 9.66) of fertilizer and 120 grams of CaNO3. The MgSO4 requirement is about 1/2 of the fertilizer so I added 60 grams. Everything dissolved perfectly with no residue floating around.

EC of my tap water is .6-.7 depending on the season. I know I should use RO water but at the rate I keep changing out these reservoirs, that would get kinda pricey. Any who, starting EC was .7 today and after I mixed all my fertilizers in the final EC was about 4.65 +/- .05. I've thought my meter was off but I've recalibrated and it's reading of everything else (RO water, tap water, etc) is just fine. This seems super high and I'm thinking that this is my bud killer.

Any thoughts? I'm tempted to dump some RO water (EC .02) into it just to dilute it. I think I can get 4.5 gallons of RO in the reservoir which would lower the EC to (theoretically) 3.38 EC.

[JHazzardB]

So I've reduced the EC to around 3.2. I went ahead and tried to address the humidity issue. My meter has been saying 32-34% during the day. I thought if I enclose and seal them up that moisture would increase. I spent about and hour and a ton of mylar enclosing by tomatoes. Barely any light peaked out and I was proud. Sadly, I watched over the next hour the humidity drop from 33%-19%. I moved the humidity meter out of the 'cage' and the rest of the garage is at 49%. I think I created an oven to bake my tomatoes. So, next project---install an inline duct fan that will draw in the fresh garage air and exhaust the drier 'cage' air.

Seriously, this is becoming more intensive than I ever thought it would! Still anxiously waiting for that first flower...

[finewoodstudio]

Looks like you are making change after change and expecting the see the result the next day. Sorry, it does not work that way. I usually make a change and expect to see a difference in a week or more. Never used a HID lamp because of their high heat output and high power consumption. you might need to have more air flow.