Saturday 31 December 2011

Hydroponic Tomatoes

It might seem a bit difficult at first when you attempt to grow hydroponic tomatoes, but a little bit of time and money will reap tremendous benefits in the form of ripe, juicy, and delicious tomatoes. Hydroponics is rather a rigorous plant cultivation process, involving the usage of artificial lighting, as well as nutrients and growing media. The nutrients are supplied to the plants through a water based solution. The pH level of this solution has to be carefully monitored and maintained. The proper cultivation of tomatoes depends quite significantly on an adequate supply of water and light. But if these requirements are met, the produce is so delicious that a lot of people are more than willing to take the hydroponics route as compared to purchasing commercially available, soil grown tomatoes.

Hydroponic tomatoes require a lot of extra care and nurturing when they are first set for cultivation. Like other growing plants, tomatoes also require adequate exposure to light and darkness, and it is therefore necessary that the artificial lighting used for hydroponic tomatoes is controlled with a timer. This has its own benefit, in that you can provide some extra light to the plant during cloudy periods of the day. It is always best to place the hydroponic tomato plant in proximity to a big window. Additionally, the roots of the plants should be supplied with all the necessary nutrients it needs, like potassium, nitrogen, phosphorous etc. On the note of benefits, growing hydroponic tomatoes implies that there would be no harmful pests that come from soil. This in turn eliminates the need to spray the plant with any harmful chemicals that used to kill the pests.

As far as the nutrient solution systems are concerned, there are two kinds of them, the open or non-recovery systems, and the closed or recovery systems. With the latter, it is possible to recycle and reuse the nutrient solution, but this is not so with the open system. The closed system is therefore less costly and more economical, since it prevents the nutrients from being wasted. It may also be noted here that since the tomatoes plants imbibe the nutrient solution directly through their roots, they don’t require a lot of it for creating energy. This implies that the extra energy leads to larger plant yields. Hydroponic tomatoes that are cultivated with the appropriate proportions of nutrients, light, and water, turn out to be strong and robust, and are very tasty in quality.

Once people have had a good experience with hydroponic tomatoes, they are quite likely to grow their tomatoes, given the tremendous advantages and fun that come along with the process! Go ahead, try hydroponic tomatoes, you won’t be disappointed.

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