Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So a question for the group. I have been learning with my indoor system that you have to replicate much of what happens outdoors on my indoor system to have things grow correctly. So far I have worked on getting artificial wind (oscillating fan) and sunlight (tons of florescent lights).

What about getting moisture on the leaves? Do plant leaves require being wet down from time to time to simulate rain?

Below is a picture of some of the issues I am seeing with my tomatoes leaves, I am having a ton of them die off and I am getting hundreds of blossoms but they just fall off and don't turn to tomatoes. I have a good idea that the reason for the leaves dying and the blossoms falling off is because I don't have enough light on them and also was missing trace nutrients. But I got to thinking if the leaves would dry up if they were always dry.

Any thoughts? Like I said, I am aware of the lighting and nutrient issues, I just doubled the light in the system, and have started adding maxicrop, right now I am just curious about whether I need to simulate rain.

Thanks

An occassional spray wouldn't hurt.... but not too often...

Being indoors your could end up with humidity and mildew issues... particularly cucumbers, zucchinis and tomatos...

The bottom leaves of a tomato will die off and look like that anyway... just prune them off...

In fact a good trick is to prune the leaves below the fruit truss... it encourages growth... and helps circulation of air...

Yeah, its tricky thinking about getting water on the leaves, as I have lights that are on all the time, and electric and water don't mix well.

I have been going through an doing some pruning so I can get some smaller stuff growing under the tomatoes, have some good peppers going now and am going to get some lettuce after that I think.

As to the blossoms dropping without setting fruit, if pollination doesn't happen, then the fruit won't set. Since you are indoors, you may need to do the job of the insects and pollinate the flowers. Sometimes just tapping on the vines daily will get enough pollen airborne to do the job but more through is to use a small paint brush or Q-tip to touch from flower to flower to spread the pollen around.

Out here we get no rain from May through September and tomatoes are perfectly happy. Less moisture means fewer fungi and diseases. As long as there is plenty of water, air, and nutrients at the roots....

I'd guess that the tomato leaf yellowing could be due to nutrients, but it might be a root rot problem. How is your drainage? Timed flood/drain, continuous, or what?

I thought that only specific plants needed to be pollinated? For example I knew that cucumbers needed to be, but I didn't think tomatoes did.

I will try giving the plants a bump while the fan is on, that should help. Good suggestion though.

You can ensure almost 100% pollination.. and full trusses of tomatos... if you brush each flower with a toothbrush...