Tomatoes?!what system is best?

[mikkel753951]

what is the best system to grow tomatoes successfully?
backyard and commercially?

[Ravnis]

The answer is "it depends". There was a study done in Canada that shows hydroponics in general out produces aquaponics the first year. The second year the aquaponics passes the hydroponic system in production. A study done on aquaponic growth vs land growth shows yields of 3 to 17 times greater with an aquaponic system, depending on the plant, than land growth.

Raft system are cheaper to produce and maintain because of no extra media cost, but have other filtration requirement. These filtration components also added to flood and drain system may provide improved operability of that system, but this continues to be hotly debated at this time. For a small backyard system the flood and drain system seems to be the more efficient space wise. The flood and drain style has higher capital expense for a commercial operation. I'll have to let someone else talk about nft system as I attempted to set one up out of pvc and was not successful. with my hot summers (115 F) my plants could not handle the heat at all in the nft and struggled in the flood and drain.

[GaryD]

Hi,

In a backyard, tomatoes can be grown in soil-based systems, using a variety of hydroponics systems or in an aquaponics unit. The same applies to commercial production of tomatoes.

In short, no one system is best. Your precise choice will depend on your resources, your preferences and the availability of various system components.


Gary