best system for tomatoes?

[animus_divinus]

ive decided to start splitting my systems up.. the hps lights on a smaller scale are inexpensive enough, and the efficiency is great enough that i can start growing vegetables with individual systems, and im going to start out with a tomato plant

for about $30 i can get a 100w HPS light which produces roughly 10,000 lumens, which should allow me to comfortable grow a tomato plant

my intention is to grow this thing in a 5 gallon bucket perhaps.. possibly with a drip system, or maybe even just deep water culture.. but thats my question

im either going to cage or trelis the tomato plant to keep it smaller, more compact... so im wondering which specific tomato varieties would have a greater yield in a smaller area?

another question.. do tomato plants do better in deep water culture, drip, or ebb and flow?

and lastly... when the tomato is to size... which light is going to allow me to grow fruits faster?.. hps, or metal halide?... i hear the MH lamps of an equal wattage will grow fruits faster where the hps of the same wattage will grow the green bits faster?.. is this true?.. and if so, would the MH be better for a fruit bearing plant like tomatoes.. while the HPS lights i should reserve for lettuces and such?

[animus_divinus]

seems i was a tad mistaken on HPS vs MH... so ill use HPS... will 100w actually work or will i need a 150w bulb?

[GpsFrontier]

I was going to mention that You had the uses for MH and HPS backward, but I guess you have that figured out. I know a lot of people like using water culture for growing tomatoes, and even though I have grown tomato's in a flood and drain, I would prefer using a drip system for them myself (as well as most large plants). A drip system is easy, and much more forgiving.

P.S.
Have you considered florescent lighting for lettuce?

[animus_divinus]

well... DWC seems simple if im using a 5 gallon bucket with a hole cut in the lid to drop a net pot into... then all i really need is a little aquarium pump and some way to measure the level of the water without opening it

however, that aeration pump would be constantly running, i think a drip system works on a timer.. so its running less, but requires a timer, a bit of a tradeoff i guess

which size net pot would be neccessary to hold a tomato plant grown in a 2x2 foot cage?

also.. heres a little drip vs dwc question... should power fail, what will die out quicker?.. dwc wouldnt be able to aerate the liquid, and drip wouldnt be able to supply it

[GpsFrontier]

The air pump running 24/7 wont even be noticeable on your electric bill, so I wouldn't worry about the electricity use. If you want to tell for yourself use this Electricity Cost Calculator, all you need to know is the wattage, and cents/kw-hr that's easily found on your electric bill. Then just put 24 in the section for hours, multiply the total by 30, and that will tell you what it cost to run it for an entire month. If the box dosen't have the wattage listed, multiply the amperage by the voltage, and that will give you the wattage. I don't have the box for my air pumps but I'll use the High volume air pump I linked in the to in the other thread as an example. That pump is 66 watts, and I pay 9.29 cents per kw-hr (that includes the base charge as well as surcharges). Using the calculator I linked to, that pump would cost me $0.15 (15 cents) to run all day long, $0.15x 30= $4.50 a month 24/7 all month long. The air pump/s you'll need wont be annoyware near that wattage. Found it, here's the air pump I grew my 8 lettuce plants with in a water culture system Tetra Whisper 60 Aquarium Air Pump - AquaCave (I got it at wal mart for about $12). Look under specifications, that air pump is only 4 watts. At the rate per kw-hr I pay, that pump only costs me $0.30 per month to run 24/7 all month long.

As for what size basket to use for a 2 foot tomato plant in a water culture system (bucket). Well I would probably use something like a 4-5-6 inch basket. But there are a lot of people who would say you can use a basket as small as 2 inches. And it probably would be OK for that small of a tomato plant, especially if your planing to support the foliage. But I just like having more growing medium around the main root-ball myself (again because it's more forgiving for the plant).


P.S.
I get heavy duty timers (15 amp) at Kmart for about $7. My largest water pump has a maximum pumping height of 8.7 feet, and will pump a max volume of 500 gallons per-hour, and is only 35 watts. So even if I had it running all day (24 hours), it would only cost me 8 cents (or $2.40 to run 24/7 for 30 days).

heres a little drip vs dwc question... should power fail, what will die out quicker?.. dwc wouldnt be able to aerate the liquid, and drip wouldnt be able to supply it

That would depend on a lot of variables, but in general I would say the plants in a drip system not getting any water at all for days would probably completely die before plants in a un-aerated water culture system that had plenty of water. The biggest factors being temperature, the type of growing medium used in the drip system, as well as how much growing medium is used, and relative humidity. As well as how much water volume is in the water culture system, and how big the plants are in either system. I live in the desert where relative humidity is very low most of the year (below 10%), and I often forgot to plug back in the pump to the timer after I did something to my broccoli plants (the same ones I linked to in the other thread that were in the 5 gallon buckets, that was a drip system). I used coco chips as a growing medium for them, and coco chips hold moisture better than most growing mediums. And even on days that neared 100 degrees, I saw no singes of wilting from those full grown plants over 24 hours later when I noticed that I forgot to plug the pump in the next day.

[animus_divinus]

well them.. im going to go deep water culture with a 5-6 inch pot... im going to build a box around the bucket with one side exposed.. that side might have a cage in front of it to keep it growing up in the box

the box will be line with white poster board, and the light will be mounted to shine from the side so that the entire plant will get even light, not just the top

in total for cost of electricity and nutrients, this is about a $10/month project in cost for the amount of tomatoes itll hopefully put out

now i just need to find a really high yielding indeterminate tomatoe plant to grow... would be nice of an heirloom variety worked, but as long as it was good for sauces as well as sandwiches it would be good