Growing Hydroponic tomatoes is easy once you have your hydroponic system all set up! They’ll be there for you to pick your own whenever you want them, all year round!
Hydroponic tomatoes will on average be bigger than traditional soil grown tomatoes, they will also take around 40% less time to grow due to the roots not having to spread out and search for nutrients (which they have to do in soil)! In hydroponics, plants roots have ready access to water and nutrients at predetermined intervals so they don’t have to work to get nutrition. Since the roots are more compact you’ll be able to plant more hydroponic tomatoes within a smaller area.
Your hydroponic tomatoes will also grow to be much healthier! This is because soil contains pests, insects and soil borne diseases. As a result of growing hydroponic tomatoes, they will be richer in color, taste better and be all round healthier.
How To Grow Hydroponic Tomatoes
You can choose whether you’d like to grow on a small scale, for example by using an all-in-one hydroponic system such as the Hydrofarm EMSYST Emily’s Electric Garden System or otherwise you could go on a much larger scale as i’ll describe below.
Hydroponic System For Your Tomatoes
First of all you’ll need to have a hydroponic system in place. There are different hydroponic systems and the one you use should depend on exactly what you’re growing and on what scale. You should also ask yourself, if you’re starting out, will you be likely to upscale at a later stage?
For hydroponic tomatoes i would suggest you go for an ebb and flow system! This is because tomatoes are short plants, the roots won’t be too large and it’s the simplest kind of system also.
Ebb and Flow Systems for Hydroponic Tomatoes
With an ebb and flow system, you will be growing your tomatoes in plant pots within a larger tray. The plant pots will be filled with a growing medium such as perlite or rockwool. This will allow lots of oxygen to be able to get through to the roots.
At periodic intervals, best done using a timer, the system will “flow” and fill the larger tray with the nutrient solution. This submerges the roots for a few minutes. For hydroponic tomatoes it’s best to set your system to water the roots perhaps 3 times in a day and keep them submerged for around 30 minutes. After this point the system will “ebb” away the water. The growing medium will then dry out and allow oxygen easy access to the roots again.
I would suggest you monitor this carefully at first. If you’re not watering them enough then you can give an extra watering session per day.
Grow Tents For Hydroponic Tomatoes
Hydroponic grow tents are fantastic as they will allow you to closely monitor and alter with ease the following settings:
Hydroponic Tomatoes – Temperature
This should be set at between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 10 degrees lower at night! This is the typical temperature that tomatoes will thrive in! If you get this balance wrong by 10 degrees either side, you’ll end up with discoloured, stunted or even dead hydroponic tomatoes!
You’ll need to keep a thermometer in your tent and keep close eye on this. You can alter the temperature in your tent by using fans in conjunction with grow lights.
Hydroponic Tomatoes – Lighting
Tomatoes are long day plants, so use the blue part of the light spectrum! They should ideally have 18 hours of light per day! I would recommend you use a metal halide high intensity discharge lamp! There are many hydroponic grow lights and this one fits perfectly within most tents. I would suggest you keep the lamp to within 4 inches of the leaves. Ensure you raise the lamp as the plant grows. This light system allows you to raise each side independently of each other in case one side grows faster than the other.
Having grow lights within a tent is great for tomatoes. The inside of the tent is silver lined to reflect the light back inside. The outside of the tent is black to keep the heat inside the tent as well. With all this considered, yes the tent will be the ideal temperature for tomatoes to grow very quickly but it can quite easily over heat. So please keep an eye on that optimum temperature level of around 70 – 80 degrees F.
Hydroponic Tomatoes – Humidity
Hydroponic tomatoes need the correct humidity levels, a little too much and they’ll end up with calcium deficiencies! They will also struggle to take in other nutrients from your nutrient solution! The ideal setting for hydroponic tomatoes would be a 70% humidity level however you could go as high as 80% and they should be fine.
You monitor humidity levels of course by use of a hygrometer and many thermometers come with them built in. If the humidity level gets too high then this can disrupt photosynthesis. The result of this can be fungus growing on your hydroponic tomatoes.
So how do you change your humidity levels in your tent or grow room? That’s a good question! This is done by using fans which we also use for temperature control. We use exhaust fans to expel hot and humid air in conjunction with intake fans to bring in fresh and cool air. This Bionaire BW2300 Twin Window Fan works as both an exhaust and an intake fan. It also rather cleverly has it’s own thermostat as well as a timer so you can automate the whole process of temperature and humidity control. It has a twin fan so one fan can bring in cool air while the other gets rid of the hot air. However I myself use two of them; one for each job!
Hydroponic Tomatoes – CO2
Since all plants feed on CO2, your grow room or grow tent will eventually become depleted of CO2. This is yet another reason to use the fan as described above as the fan will expel the CO2 depleted air and also bring in CO2 rich air from the outside. It really does do a three in one job of maintaining the system of temperature, humidity and CO2. Please read the article on CO2 and hydroponics.
If you want to give your tomatoes an extra CO2 kick then this does no harm. You can get special CO2 release mechanisms especially for hydroponics. Essentially you can burn fuel, thus releasing CO2 into the atmosphere which will feed the plants. There are a couple different methods of doing this, watch this space for a review and tutorial in the near future.
Nutrient Solution For Hydroponic Tomatoes
It is your nutrient solution that your ebb and flow system will be pumping up and soaking the grow medium with. The beauty of hydroponics is that we have close control of this and we can mix our nutrient solutions to be the perfect pH balance for tomatoes.
However i’ve heard from several sources that the optimal pH range for tomatoes is actually surprisingly large, there is literally large room for error with this. This is because tomatoes grow all over the world in all types of soil acidities. You can get away with your solution being anywhere from 5.5 all the way up to pH 9. Of course this is extreme and you may want to play it safe and keep your pH at between 5.5 – 6.5.
I’m finally going to make a start on my hydroponic tomatoes! Is there a better system than the ebb and flow for them though? I only want something small, to fit on my kitchen counter would be great and i’m not sure an ebb and flow system is what i need. What do you suggest?
Well, while you can buy or create ebb and flow systems small enough to fit on your counter top, however, if you’re after something small and simple that will really give you results then i’ve just tested out the awesome Aerogarden Extra Elite, you should see my review for it. It is an aeroponic system, so not ebb and flow! Hope that helps!
I am an Agricultural Engineer and now working in green house tomatoes production, we want to divert green houses to hydroponics but there are some problems for us.
1. how to install the hydroponics system.
2. which kind of vegetables are good for hydroponics.
3. which kind of solution and nutrients used.
4. we will added nutrients to the solution again and again or only one time.
5. because of more water in hydroponics system we will faced some fungal desease, how to prevent.
please send me some important information.
Hi Amjad. Firstly, i wish you the best of luck with this endevour. Changing existing soil based gardening to hydroponics will give you massive increased yields. You really need to ensure your hydroponic set up is efficient and streamlined. I’ve written an article on making money with hydroponics which should help you here.
And to your questions:
1. This depends on which system you’re going for! It sounds like you’re going on a pretty big scale. I’m sure most hydroponic farmers would agree the best system to extract the most produce would be the NFT system! NFT systems can be scaled quite large! I’m busy writing a guide on setting up NFT systems, so i’m afraid you’ll need to watch this space. In the meantime your local hydroponic warehouse will be able to instruct you.
2. All vegetables. Again, read the above article on making money in hydroponics. If you grow what’s in demand in your area, carry out your research first then you can make money growing anything. My personal preferences are tomatoes and basil!
3,4,5. You can use any hydroponic fertilizer for most things. The pH level of which will differ depending on what you’re growing. Research thoroughly every different crop for optimum levels of light, nutrients etc. Here is a good place to start for many things. Your pH levels should be checked every couple of days and altered accordingly if it strays too far off desired levels. Your nutrient solution should also be changed completely from your hydroponic system every 2 weeks. This will prevent many fungal diseases from spreading. You need to also keep everything clean which will prevent many others.
I’m doing an environmental chemistry project about hydroponically grown plants and traditionally grown plants and I was wondering if I could use this site for my project. All I need is your name so that I can put it in APA format.
Thanks so much!
Mady
Hi Mady, i’m not too sure what APA format is, but sure go ahead with pleasure. My name is Damian Jackson. If you need anything else then just ask.