Respiration and Tomato Plants
It is useful to understand respiration because by making conditions ideal for this process, plants grow faster and healthier.
So what is respiration?
It is a process that happens when plants combine the sugars they make during photosynthesis, with oxygen they absorb through their leaves … and especially their roots!
Respiration is the process of combining sugars and oxygen to create energy for growth.
Sugars + Oxygen = Energy which in tomato plants is used for new growth (and other life functions).
So what can we do to optimise respiration in our tomato plants?
- Lots of light including white reflective surfaces
- A gentle movement of air in the greenhouse or pollytunnel to help replenish carbon dioxide (for photosynthesis) and oxygen (for respiration) and encourage transpiration.
- Making sure that roots have enough oxygen by using perlite, air/fabric pots and even the air pipe (see below and last week’s newsletter).
Micro-organisms need oxygen in the soil too.
This is especially important for organic growers because it’s the friendly fungi and bacteria that turn the organic substances into food that can be absorbed by the plant’s roots.
This is why very wet, saturated soil, that lacks oxygen, is bad for healthy root growth, as well as the process of decomposition carried out by micro-organisms.
Friendly micro-organisms also help protect roots from harmful organisms that cause disease.
It’s been a good week for tomato growing in my part of the world – plenty of light during the day and relatively mild temperatures at night for this time of the season.
However, it’s at this time of the season that young tomato plants are most vulnerable because of …
- fluctuating temperatures
- condensation and damp air
- under developed root systems that are easily damaged by …
- over-watering!
Once disease has become established, it is almost impossible to cure, it’s usually a matter of damage limitation by preventing diseases from spreading to other plants.
Caressing your plants leaves!
There’s been some mention of this in the media lately and I believe it has been proven to improve growth. Just make sure that all of your plants are disease free, otherwise you may be spreading something nasty from plant to plant.
A professional greenhouse grower would only touch the leaves of a tomato plant if it was absolutely necessary because it is so easy to spread disease on the hands – from leaf to leaf.
Disease resistance and aspirin
The active ingredient in aspirin (acetyl-salicylic acid) stimulates a tomato plant’s immune system and helps prevent disease.
This is particularly useful for growers in the third world where chemical sprays are expensive but aspirin is a lot cheaper!
It is also being used by some home-growers – those that know about it that is … and reports are favourable.
This season I’m using soluble aspirin, on some of my plants, diluted to around 75mg per litre – that’s just over 300mg per gallon but I’m not being too exact about it.
Here’s an interesting article about the use of aspirin on tomato plants.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter and I hope your plants are doing well!
Regards
Nick