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Grittyville, WA

Have not seen any posts in about a week, let me know how much u guys are crushing me at this,

Brandon

1/16/2019 2:02:46 AM

Grittyville, WA

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=300072

Where is it! Can't see it with all that lettuce ha ha,

Post some updates guys? Curious how yours are doing!

1/16/2019 2:07:15 AM

Western Massachusetts

Bad here. Making clones from suckers. Had calcium imbalances

1/16/2019 8:11:23 AM

Wixom MI.

My domingo won't flower for me but i have a marble sized one onmy megazac.

1/16/2019 10:30:33 AM

Grittyville, WA

You were off to a great start Hayden... Thought you had this one in the bag. The calcium levels in potting mix must be low compared to soil... It may also have a little too much nitrogen for fruit set? My tedious theory: Tomatoes are biologically programed to set fruit when they run out of nitrogen and when there is not an excess of water. Without the two main things needed for growing foliage, this signals to the plant that reproduction (setting a fruit) may be the only remaining route to survival. Well good luck, thanks for the updates!

1/16/2019 3:12:04 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

I am doing ok for the half hearted effort this winter. I have been posting updates in my diary. I expect my soil tomato to be just under 2 pounds. Hydro's have much yet to grow. Hayden, BER has been a terrible problem for the growers for the past 3 years. I think it is more than calcium. I know you have been running hydro. I have pushed calcium levels super high in the tanks before(CalMg) and still had it. I had it on my soil tomato even though I added excess amounts of gypsum before starting. This year at about 5" cc set measurement, I am going to try to add of calcium chloride to the tank. Using RO water I have experienced chloride deficiency. Hoping this will slow down the BER. In the past I have used much RotStop over the winter.

1/16/2019 6:29:04 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Brandon, I do not agree with your theory. My plants never run out of N. The ratios between N,P and K change but there is always a bit of nitrogen. The biggest factors in getting the sets are heat levels and light levels. Someday I should get a spectrometer and measure the DLI of the red light spectrum. Getting the sets for me is not a problem...getting them to grow big is the challenge.

1/16/2019 6:36:58 PM

Grittyville, WA

oh... Well high transpiration levels and high intensity light are other factors for sure. Dropping the nitrogen down sounds crazy to you but I think as long as everything else is in place like K Mg Ca S it can really trick the plant into investing all available energy into the fruit. And I do think tricking the plant in this way is a big part of getting the kind of results we want... Plants are too smart if you give it everything it needs to grow a big plant then it makes biological sense to delay the investment in fruit. The plant knows that more seeds later is better than a few seeds now. The plant knows if it invests all its energy into one tomato its less likely to successfully reproduce than if it grows ten tomatoes. So it would rather not invest all its energy into the first fruit it sets. Unless you trick it into thinking that first 'one' tomato will be its last chance at reproduction.

1/16/2019 8:57:00 PM

Grittyville, WA

Its a theory. But it makes sense in terms of the reproductive goal.
Thousands of years of evolution in natural environments has taught them to make 'decisions' based on their environment to maximize their reproductive success and ironically aborting or under-investing in some of the early sets can be beneficial in terms of the plants ability to set a larger amount of fruit later. Does that make any sense? Anyhow there is evolutionary logic within the plant. It knows its environment and its programmed to maximize its success based on the things it can 'sense'. It has a much different logic than we do and much different senses. Kinda hard to get into the head of a tomato plant but I think I have said enough you get the idea as strange and hard to believe as it may seem, it is nevertheless logical.

1/16/2019 9:16:09 PM

Grittyville, WA

ps Male humans who wish to reproduce... tomatoes wont be the only messy mix of logical contradictions you will encounter ha ha.

1/16/2019 9:29:23 PM

Grittyville, WA

...Thats where I am totally stumped. (Not meant to offend. )

1/16/2019 9:39:29 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

Planted my seeds. Nothing happened. Watered them. Nothing happened. Now I can't tell whether they sprouted or not. Watered and fertilized them. Still nothing. They don't seem to be doing anything under the ice. Was this an indoor thing?

1/17/2019 8:30:26 AM