Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
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.)

So it seems I had half of the answer, knowing about 'buzz pollination' of
tomato flowers. A quick Google gave me the other half (now that 10+ flowers
have dropped off each of the two sprays). An electric toothbrush seems to be
the best way to pollinate tomato flowers - the vibrations cause the pollen
to fall onto the style the same way as a bumble bees vibrations do.

Now I just need to find a cheap battery powerd toothbrush. I just tickled
the three or four remaining flowers with my Braun Oral-B but it would be
nicer to have a dedicated cheaper tool for the job.
--
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)

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.