Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - Red plastic mulch for containers.

[QUOTE=Barry12;587802]Has anyone tried growing tomatoes in fabric pots using srm red red plastic mulch in order to increase yields? I have seen pictures of this method for Tom plants grown in ground but not in containers.

Curious of any results anyone may have regarding this.

Barry[/QUOTE]

Barry,I was at the NE Vegetable conference in MA many years ago when Clemson U first introduced the red plastic mulch.The man giving the talk handed out lots of info sheets to suppor their contention that it would increase tomato yields by about 20%.

What was not said was that it was intended for commercial growers and they had to lay down the plastic on two feet either side of the plants,which were inground and also compact plants as most commercial growers do grow for machine harvesting.

It didn't take long for homegrowers to want that expensive red plastic, and I think I can summarize by saying that increases of maybe 5 to10% were the norm, and balanced against the still expensive red stuff, no gain at all.

And then came the green and blue and silver plastic ones that were supposed to do this and that,and didn't.

What bothers me is that various places are stil lsaying a 20% increase,even selling those red plastic plant holders that are useless,and on and on.

I see no reason to conclude that the data would be different for inground vs container,and probably worse for container since it's based on reflection of sun and with containers it's very possible that most of the reflection would hit the container and not the plants themselves. Just my opinion and if you wanted to you could grow two plants of one variety, preferably a compact one,one inground with the red stuff two feet on either side,and one in a container same distance for the red stuff and see what you get.

Carolyn