Quote:
Originally Posted by Heritage
GG, thank you for the interesting comparisons. Were your injection formulas (and timing) based on a soil analysis, or is that a standard commercial application regime for field grown tomatoes?
Also, have you trialed any OP tomatoes? If so, what were they lacking in comparison to the F1s? Production? Disease resistance?
Steve
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Basically, I have an early spring pre-plant soil analysis - make sure your lab tests for molybdenum as well - even a slight deficiency of molybdenum can have a dramatic impact on your yields! I like to amend my soil with Gypsum - it buffers the soil, as well as provides an excellent source of calcium throughout the growing season. I base a lot of my injection formulas on knowledge I gained from Dr. Mohyuddin Mirza when I took his greenhouse crops at university. My soil tends to be a fairly sandy loam, so nutrients tend to leach rather quickly. After transplanting, I give my tomatoes 10-52-10 after transplanting through a Dosatron injector - with a system of Toro Drip-in line (which I can re-use for up to 10 years). At first bud set, I get a leaf analysis done - this is where I want to get my micro-nutrition pretty much dialed in - B, Zn, Mn, Fe, Cu, and Mo. After that, there's pretty much no set formula - reading my plants daily, and choosing between generative and vegetative steering - high N favors vegetative, while high P and K favors generative. The basics I use are AN, KnO3, MgNO3, MKP, NH4SO4, and CaNO3.
As for OP tomatoes, I will run, not walk away from them. First most, if not all have only one disease resistance trait or none at all. Second, most OP tomatoes do not have parthenocarpy genes - meaning they will not set very well at times. Third, OP tomatoes lack any sort of shelf-life. Just to give you an idea, this is the varieties I am growing in addition to my cocktail tomatoes: Cobra F1, Arbason F1 (Trial), Pitenza F1, Solid Gold F1, Loranne F1, Beorange F1, Tomatoberry F1, and Sakura F1.