shade cloth
 

Hello All!

I am thinking of using shade cloth over my tomatoes this summer. Was wondering, do any of you use shade cloth in con★★★★★★★★ with a fan to keep your tomatoes cool during extreme summer months?


Thanks
Mike

I started using shade cloth last year when my plants looked pathetic in the scorching heat and their blossoms dropped in huge numbers. I can't say how much cooler it is under the shade cloth but I will attest that it is much more comfortable working under the shade cloth, and I do believe my plants benefited. When it is 100 degrees and extremely low humidity those plants transpire heavily. The shade cloth even lightened my watering some. I am hoping I can keep the temperature under 95 F under the shade cloth and salvage some blossoms. I'll know more this year.

[QUOTE=gunrunner;444576]Hello All!

I am thinking of using shade cloth over my tomatoes this summer. Was wondering, do any of you use shade cloth in con★★★★★★★★ with a fan to keep your tomatoes cool during extreme summer months?


Thanks
Mike[/QUOTE]A lot of growers around me swear by shade cloth. Me personally though, I use strategic companion planting. Things like low growing plants to protect the soil like various herbs including basil, flowers including dwarf marigolds, even perennial sod between each row and strategically placed giant sunflowers for partial shade during the heat. Side benefit is many pollinators including sweat bees. With that I have so far managed to beat most the heat stress and gotten good heat set too.:yes:

Mike temperature is measured in the shade so if it is say 100F at your house that's what it will order the cloth.
Out in the sun you get radiant heat which makes the temperature go way up.
This is the same heat the tomatoes feel or have on them.
So a shade cloth can lower the temperature on the surface of the plant.

Now for tbe fan.
A fan will not cool the plants unless water is evaporating off of them.
Or the wind from the fan is evaporating water from some place else.
The amount of evaporation you get is in direct relation to the humidity in the air.
The more humidity the less evaporation.
If you can put up some sort of water soaked screen up wind of the plants you can cool the air tremendously.
This is how an evaporative cooler works.
So if the plant is dry and not evaporating water at a high rate the fan will not cool it off.
This cool air has to come from some place else.
Worth

wow
 

Thanks for the info! I have planted tomatoes for several years, but the last two have been bas all around. trying to come up with ways to make it better for the plants. thanks for all the feed back

Mike

My tomatoes get full sun but I make sure to mulch the pathways. It may get too hot for fruit set but the roots near the surface will only be 95 instead of 115 degrees. Less evaporation and easier on the knees if you have to weed.

In my in ground plants, shade cloth is essential. I'm in a suburban setting and the best light is a bed along a high brick wall of a bedroom facing south that traps heat. Typical summers have at least 30 days of 100 degrees plus, but worse is the fact that at night, the temps don't cool sufficiently for tomatoes. July and August frequently have night temps only as low as 82-83 degrees and that's for a few minutes at 6 a.m. Without S.C., I'll get a decent first wave of tomatoes, then the plants are fried.
With S.C. I'm able to keep plants alive from March plant out until a freeze in late November or December. There is a massive slow down in July and August, but they pick up again in fall.

I'm in DFW and your weather is likely similar. A little cooler but more humid. So, I think you'll see major benefits from SC. As far as a fan goes, I don't think that'll help much, if at all. It'll probably cause you to lose moisture faster and keep away bees, etc. Good luck.

Dewayne Mater

shade cloth
 

Dewayne

Thanks for the info Being that your weather is very like ours are you saying that you leave the cloth on all night? If so, are you removing during a.m. for some sun to get thru?
Also my setup sounds like yours in that I plant in a bed directly behind the house(brick wall) and that brick soaks up the afternoon sun like crazy then rediates back into the plants. My bed faces south but it gets lots of direct sun from the west from noon til dark.

I use 50% block sun shade cloth starting in late May, early June, depending on the temps. In the summer, they get more than ample sunlight with the 50% up all the time. Once up, they stay up through September. I try to get the cloth about 7 feet high so that I can comfortably stand under it and more important, so I can spray if needed, remove bad bugs, trim back growth, etc.

When you stand under it during the heat, then step into the sunlight, the temp to the body seems to go up dramatically. I assume tomato plants experience that sensation as well.

Here's a link to some good information on shade cloth.

[url]https://www.growerssupply.com/farm/supplies/ExternalPageView?pageKey=EXTERNAL_PAGE_3001[/url]

shade cloth
 

Thanks for the info guys

Mike

I'm hoping to change my gardening setup to use shade cloth this year. During July & August my tomatoes looked really scraggly, they had no sun protection at all. Only sungold/scp/bbb/epp were still setting fruit, which is still amazing, but it really seemed like my plants need a hug (in the form of shade) during august.

Harbor Freight has always had the best prices on shade cloth, which I used on all my gardens in Mesa. Except the eggplants. They slow down a bit in the summer but not much. Only when it's 110+.

Solar Green House Shade Cloth
 

I use a 40% shade on my green house from mid June to mid September. With fans and shade can usually keep the temp around 90 degrees.