NFT build. I change and clean the 25gal reservoir once a month. Water is an even 70°F and ambient temp is 72°F at 40-50% humidity.
Using Masterblend Tomato nutrients, with added CalMag at 2.5g per gallon:
2g per gal 4-18-38 NPK
1g per gal Epsom salt
2g per gal Calcium nitrate
2.5g per gal CalMag
I'm using a similar formula for greens, minutes the CalMag and a little more Calcium nitrate, and the system produces near perfect spinach, lettuce, swiss chard. But with these tomatoes they look like hell. I'd say the yield is fairly low per plant as well, yet they taste great.
by hydrohobby
6 Comments
What’s ec and pH?
Tomatoes are relatively weak plants (immunity wise) that are susceptible to pathogens and do better in a physical hydro media like rockwool or coir that can dry back once every day.
Every tomato farm I’ve worked with that did hydroponics implemented a drain to waste system because it’s extremely reliable and gives highly granular media control. Adding a trichoderma strain selected for biocontrol (to seedlings) has also helped with pathogen resistance IME.
Grow them under the sun in soil, tomatoes are a pain in hydro setups, they tend to suffer from pathogens pretty badly even in ideal conditions.
They don’t have enough nutrients (your ec is too low), and may be don’t enough light. Your symptoms look like tomatoes kill them self to feed fruits.
I grow hundreds of tomatoes in bato buckets. PH should be 5.8 and I wouldn’t let my EC go above 2.0. My most successful cultivar is Rebelski. Check out my links if you want to see.
that looks like a virus on your leaves. maybe tomato leaf curl