Once upon a time on usenet Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
"~misfit~" writes:
.. will remain just a dream for me it seems.

Once upon a time in another life I grew certain medicinal herbs under
artificial light (and subsequently got sent to prison for it).

In an interesting intersection of vocabulary, in the late '80s such
herbs were often referred to as "tomatoes" in online discussion
groups. Allegedly that made it harder for law enforcement to know
what they were growing.

I remember that - the feeling amongst growers was that picking tomatoes as a
psudonym was a good idea because they were a similar sized plant and also an
annual so were likely to requre broadly similar environments. I
subconsciously used this in thinking I could take what I knew from growing
cannabis in controlled condtions and apply it to growing tomatoes.

Boy was I wrong! Cannabis grows vertically in proportion to the amount of
light it receives - if you can give it intense light (without 'burning' it)
then it stunts its growth, shortens its internodes and produces a very
short, bushy compact plant. If you keep the light source the optimal
distance above the growing tops of the plant you then get lots of 'plant' in
a small space. However I'm finding that these cherry tomatoes on the other
hand keep their tall and straggly growing habits regardless of how much
light you give them - growing from seed likely didn't help much either as
it's almost half a metre from the soil to the first flower bunch.

So I decided to leave the laterals in place and hope for fruit from them.
However as I have to keep raising the lights above the top of the plant the
lats get much less light and so bolt, with extremely long internodes. I'm
having to re-think the whole idea but it's mostly too late for this winter
now. However at least I'll be able to start some good cuttings under the
main plant so they're ready for an early start outside come spring -
hopefully.

My working plan for next year (if I can afford it, the heating cost wasn't
something I initially factored into the project) is to grow multiple
*cuttings*, taken and rooted with a proto-flower spray in such a position
that it will come to fruition in under a metre vertical space, then take the
tops out to prevent the need to raise the lights (and use the growing tip as
another cutting). So one flower spray / fruit bunch per plant and multiple
plants (cuttings). That way I can use perhaps six smaller pots and cycle
plants in and out on (maybe) a 20 day cycle so there's always a fruit bunch
(or two) ripening at any one time.

It will mean spacing the LED emitters out horizontally rather than having
them in a psuedo-sun layout that I'm currently using. This will complicate
cooling of the emmiters as, at the moment I have them all on one large
heatsink with a low speed fan cooling them. I'm thinking of modifying a 3
foot aquarium light hood for the purpose, gutting it of the fluorescent
ballasts and tubes and retro-fitting the LED emmiters (the closet space I'm
using is just under 4 ft wide and 1.5 ft deep). I'm currently using 3 x 10w
emmiters above the plants and 4 x 3w above and to the sides. The leaves are
a lovely healthy very very dark green and the plant is growing like crazy so
perhaps 4 x 10w emmiters spread out horizontally will be good for this
space.

I should have used teh intarwebz - I could probably have saved myself having
to discover that tomato plants don't auto-stunt in the presence of strong
lighting in the way that cannabis does - the info is probably out there
somewhere.

Anyway, update as promised - for the edification of readers if wanted.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)