Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Derald wrote:
I'm no expert and plan to do a little reading on the subject, myself,
but tomatoes' light requirement are high; are you sure the 'maters
are getting enough light and of the correct color?

Hi Derald. Yes - I erred on the side of too much light rather than too
little, attempting to keep internodes short. Not hard to do with
high-power LEDs and a small area. As for wavelength I'm using a 50/50
mix of 8:1 red:blue 'grow spectrum' LEDs (with most output at 450 and
650nm) and cool white "full spectrum". The leaves look amazingly
healthy, very dark green, with a hint of purple. The kind of colour
you only see when you're giving them the equivalent of more than two
times 'full sun' levels of light with a good dollop of near-UVB.

Oh well, this experiment was a failure, I turned the 'heater' off yesterday.
The fan wasn't enough to 'wind pollinate' and I didn't try hand pollination
(perhaps I should have - I've done it successfully on other, larger flowers
before). Of the first two flower sprays half of the flowers have dropped off
with no fruit forming. There are no bees around outside, bumble or
otherwise, I haven't seen one for ages so kidnapping one for a short time
isn't on the cards and I don't fancy imprisoning one long-term in autmn next
year.

I know that the commercial greenhouse growers bring in captive-raised bumble
bee nests for pollination duties. (Apparently for tomatoes bumbles are the
way to go as they 'buzz-polinate' as many if not more flowers as they
deliberately pollinate. It's all to do with the frequency of their 'buzz'
and vibrations on the flower spray causing the flowers to eject pollen.)

Alas, it was largely a waste of money despite the plant growing like crazy
and looking extremely healthy. I haven't turned off the lights and as I'm
contemplating putting the heater back on and trying to hand-pollinate the
last few flowers on the current sprays. I'll 'do my finances' and see if I
can afford to keep the heater running another month to try that out. The
plant itself will serve as a source of cuttings for putting out early. Going
by what I read (and seen) it doesn't need heat for vegetive growth, only for
fruiting.
--
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)