70 Tomato Plant Set Yesterday -pix

[bp fick]

Duffster, yes sir. the potatoes are up better than ever!!! Every last one of them. No harm, no foul. My lesson? Not going to bother planting them next year until May 10. Forget the early planting for this frost belt.

Had any cut worms snip off any of your plants? This is their time of year. They can slice a stem off a tomato or pepper sharper than a Case pocket knife.

 

[Ridgewalker]

I have been working on a project at one of the largest tomato growers in the nation. It's a sight to see hundreds of acres of tomatos, peppers, watermelons, turnip greens, etc.

 

[lakngulf]

I have been working on a project at one of the largest tomato growers in the nation. It's a sight to see hundreds of acres of tomatos, peppers, watermelons, turnip greens, etc.

Wow!! What a sight. I would love to know the exact routine they go through. When seed started. When to larger pots, when planted. Mulch around the plants. Do they use some of the black stuff for weed prevention? And how are they staked? There is not a post for each plant. What kind of ?string? ?wire? is used to support the plants.

Thanks for posting that picture.

 

[jinman]

Don, as lakngulf pointed out, your photos raise a lot of questions. It looks to me like they have the tomatoes staked so they can add support string as they grow. The hilling and covering with poly seems to be a common practice for weed control and moisture containment, but I wonder if the tomatoes are determinate or indeterminate types? Will the tomatoes mature to a single crop or be picked by hand throughout the season? Where machines are used for picking, normally the tomatoes are determinate and the vines are destroyed. However, I don't think they stake that type of tomato. I believe table tomatoes are mostly indeterminate and picked by hand several times during the season. The machine picked types go to ketchup and tomato sauce products.

Of course, pepper plants will also produce fruit throughout the growing season, so repeated picking is normal unless it would be too expensive. If you have any insight into the harvest methods used or can find out, I'd sure like to know. Seeing that level of production some place other than California, Florida, or southern Texas is a thrill to me.

 

[Ridgewalker]

I will do my best to answer your questions, I don't think I am in danger of giving away any trade secrets. I know they didn't ask for an NDA so I toss that in as a disclaimer.

I was there for the 1st time in Mid March, the plants were all in hothouses and about 2" tall. They were raised from seed and I think they were planted in January.

The posted pix were taken on the 15th of May and the plants all had 'maters that are about the size of small lemons.

They have a custom plow which makes the continuous mound, the plastic is added along with a weeping waterhose that is under the plastic. The 'maters are manually planted. The joke is they have a hundred row wide planter. (Jose, Manual, Sanchez, etc) After planting they get staked, one stake is used for every two plants and they were discussing using one stake for every three. Mexican crews come thru and tie them up with a plastic twine as they grow (see new pix, they are adding the second level of twine)...they are fast as heck at it. They will tie them up to 4 times a season.

They harvest for 2 months non-stop before the season is over. Pickers hit the fields every day. The workers are all on work visas and live in on site housing provided by the grower. They get bused in and out each year with many coming back year after year. In March they had 4 workers on hand. They will have about 500 total seasonal workers on hand once harvest kicks in.

Harvest starts on June 7th...get ready for some Arkansas 'maters...hmmm, hmmm good.

 

[bp fick]

Very interesting indeed.

Gotta say, with all prejudice duly noted, that no commercial grown, chemically doused, sprayed, pesticided, picked green and shipped tomato can ever touch a all natural, home garden, vine ripened one!!! Sorry about that.

 

[Chuck52]

I wonder if that tomato support system is what is called the Florida Weave. Some of the big tomato growers (not that big though) on the GardenWeb use it, but I thought they got by with at most two stakes for three tomatoes. I just finished making a couple dozen tomato cages from remesh. I tried doing something like the weave last year, but I didn't keep up with the plants, so this year it's all cages for me.

Chuck

 

[lakngulf]

I wonder if that tomato support system is what is called the Florida Weave. Some of the big tomato growers (not that big though) on the GardenWeb use it, but I thought they got by with at most two stakes for three tomatoes. I just finished making a couple dozen tomato cages from remesh. I tried doing something like the weave last year, but I didn't keep up with the plants, so this year it's all cages for me.

Chuck

Yes, I am into cages as well. Still have about 1/3 of a roll of the concrete wire, but always looking for new methods. This year I grew all my tomatoes from seed, grew too many, gave some away, but then planted every one that I had. I was looking for new ways to hold them up.

Seems to me the string would "cut" the plants during wind storm. I had some 1 inch PVC laying around and tried to figure a way to use it, maybe make a trellis for the plants to rest on.

OP, do you know their spraying schedule and what they use?

 

[Ridgewalker]

You haven't ever had an Arkansas tomato have you? They don't pick and ship green tomatos. There are several shades of ripeness and they sort thru them to package tomatos that are in the same stage of ripeness together. They do continue to ripen during shipment of course.

I doused my 4 plants with Sevin yesterday...don't you? That is a pesticide.

I am not sticking up for them, just saying that while commercially grown they aren't really that different that the ones on my patio. I started eating Arkansas tomatos long before I started working with them and they have always been known for a great product, ditto for watermelons.

Now if you are talking about hot house tomatos I would agree. Those are like chewing on fiberboard.


Edit, Lakngulf - No idea on what they spray and when.

Very interesting indeed.

Gotta say, with all prejudice duly noted, that no commercial grown, chemically doused, sprayed, pesticided, picked green and shipped tomato can ever touch a all natural, home garden, vine ripened one!!! Sorry about that.

 

[bp fick]

I doused my 4 plants with Sevin yesterday...don't you? That is a pesticide.

Ah, no. Back in the day? yes, but no longer.

Yes, agree there is a difference in flavor and texture in commercial, shipped tomatoes. Some are exactly as tasty as the cardboard you mentioned.