Have you planted your Tomatoes yet????

[Diane Amberg]

Sounds like tomato soup.

[srkruzich]

Will tomatoes grow in water?

Yes but they have no flavor if you use hydroponics.  Tomatos pull minerals and nutrients from soil that you cannot duplicate in hydroponics.   It is relatively a simple way to grow them. You can take a 6" pvc pipe, cap the ends and drill 2" holes in them every foot or so.  Then you fill with a substance like kaolin, and plant your roots of the tomato down in them and then hook up your water solution line to the end of the cap fitting.  Then you have a exit line going back to your solution tank.  Run your water through the pip at about a gallon per hour rate, which will move the water back into the solution tank and more o2 will enter the water to be returned to the roots.   

The other added benefit of using this system is you can start them early and keep them warm with the moving water. 

[Diane Amberg]

I figured you would know. It's just not the same as good old dirt.

[Catwoman]

Moline had a great hydropontal tomato "factory"...And they tasted quite good.  It was a real shame when that place went under.  Another example of economic development that would make real sense in Elk County, if you could find an efficient manner of transporting the product to enough places to market the product.

[Diane Amberg]

I wonder what kind grows best hydroponically? Someone should try that again.

[srkruzich]

Most of your grocery store tomatos are grown hydroponically in the winter time.   I suspect the lack of taste, and if set next to a dirt grown tomato you will know theres a serious lack of taste is because most are a hybrid and the second reason is the lack of minerals from soil.

A hydroponic setup would run quite a bit.  You can figure on 2' per plant, and each plant needs to make 10 lbs of tomatos.  So to get a operation that would produce enough for transport to a market would require approximately 22,000 feet which would produce approximately  150,000 -200,000 lbs of tomatos

Thats only 1/2 truck load of tomatos.  You would need at least double that to justify a shipment.

BY the time you buy 22,000 feet of pipe to build the hydroponics, you already have invested 50,000 at least in pipe cost.  The operation would probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 by the time you got the rest of the equipment and the greenhouse to put it in.

On a small scale, your still talking around 50k and you would still need a greenhouse large enough to start enough seedlings to plant in the beds.

If you grow indoors then you have lighting costs. 

Its profitable though if you can get the contracts to produce on a large scale.  Small scale its tough real tough

[srkruzich]

I wonder what kind grows best hydroponically? Someone should try that again.

I believe that just about any tomato would grow well.  You would have to decide whether or not your looking to produce slicing tomatos or eating tomatos or sauce tomatos.  It could become more profitable if you grew some of the specialty tomatos like the ones that are hollow inside.  Lots of restaurants use them for their color and thick walls and no heart to stuff with different things. 

[Diane Amberg]

Goodness Steve, I didn't mean for you to have to work that hard, but thanks.

[srkruzich]

Goodness Steve, I didn't mean for you to have to work that hard, but thanks.

LOL not work   I love working with plants.  Just wish i had the money to do something like that.

[frawin]

Wilma, my Early Girl plants have several Tomatoes on them, anywhere from Pea size, Marble Size to Golfball size. I haven't taken the plastic down from around them yet but I think I will pretty quick. The plastic has really protected the plants from the high winds we have had this Spring.