Soil preparation is imperative for growing healthy tomato plants and in turn a bountiful crop.So when planting, make sure it’s not an extremely windy position. Tomatoes don’t like strong winds and require shelter, but air circulation is important to help discourage disease.A north-facing site is ideal as they grow better in a sunny location – the more sun the better tasting the tomato is! Choosing the right site for tomatoes is crucial.The control plants will be started from seed during mid-May to ensure that both groups of plants are roughly the same size when planted in the high tunnel during early July. Suckers will be pruned from main season tomato plants and rooted during late-June. All tomato plants in both treatments will be transplanted into a high tunnel to control for environmental factors, to prevent fungal disease, and to insure that the fall crop is able to produce as long as possible.Ĥ. At least 80 tomato plants will be produced in the experimental treatment, with an equal number being produced the control treatment.ģ. Tomato plants grown via suckers will be the experimental treatment, while tomato plants grown from seed will serve as controls.Ģ. Calculate the economic implications of each production system by accounting for any observed yield differences and variations in labor hours.ġ. Measure potential yield differences between the plants produced via suckers and late season tomato plants grown from seed.Ģ.
#Late tomato plants trial#
We propose a trial of organic late season tomatoes produced via transplanted suckers.ġ.
We believe that affordable, certified organic tomato plants for fall production can be produced using side shoots (suckers) that are pruned from main season tomato plants. Farmers in the North Central region can charge a premium for late season tomatoes, but many farmers do not attempt to grow tomatoes for fall production due to the unavailability of affordable organic plugs during early July. Certified organic tomato plugs are not locally available in our area during July, and mail order certified organic plugs are prohibitively expensive. As a result, we have found that our fall tomato seedling production suffers during this time period. Spending six weeks in May and June seeding flats (for early July field planting), maintaining correct germination and growing temperatures, and monitoring water levels of tomato seedlings takes precious labor time away from the myriad of other duties our farm staff must carry out during our busiest months. As farmers working to produce six acres of vegetables with limited labor and limited mechanization, we must work with utmost efficiency in order to keep our cost of production down. However, we struggle to grow the tomato seedlings needed for fall production due to the labor required to care for seedlings during our busiest months of the year. Over the past few years we have found that late season tomatoes (ripening after Labor Day) are popular with our customers. We produce vegetables year round on our farm, and work to extend the growing season of each crop we produce.
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