Lighting of seedlings is one of the most important conditions for the effective cultivation of young tomatoes. The daylight hours of seedlings should be about 12-15 hours, so many vegetable growers provide additional lighting. Before growing tomatoes, it is recommended to familiarize yourself with how to arrange a place for germinating seedlings and which LED seedling lamp can be used.
Why highlight seedlings?
Most tomato varieties have a fairly long growing season.That is why they are planted in the middle of winter, when the duration of daylight hours is still too short. In order for such plants to fully develop, special lighting is provided for the seedlings. With its help you can maintain optimal light conditions in winter.
If you refuse additional illumination of seedlings, certain problems may arise during cultivation. Due to insufficient light, tomato seedlings begin to stretch out their stems. Over time, elongated internodes appear on them.
This is due to the fact that in low light the process of photosynthesis begins to slow down in the bushes. If you don’t start lighting the seedlings in a timely manner, they will start to get sick.
Duration and amount of additional illumination
To figure out how to properly illuminate seedlings, you need to determine the amount of time to illuminate the bushes. Daylight hours for tomatoes should be at least 12-15 hours. Moreover, in winter, even those plants that are located near the south window need to be illuminated.
The lamp should turn on at approximately six in the morning and remain on until eight o'clock in the evening. During the daytime, the lighting can be turned off, as there should be enough sunlight. It is best to turn it off at lunchtime, when it is the brightest time of day. To avoid having to think about when to turn off the lights, you can purchase lamps with automatic lighting timers installed. With their help, you can turn on the lighting for 5-7 hours, after which the lamp will turn off itself.
Having decided on the optimal duration of additional lighting, you should figure out how much light tomato seedlings need. After all, this also matters during cultivation. Tomatoes need illumination of 25-45 thousand lux.It is simply impossible to achieve such an amount of light without additional lamps, since in winter on the windowsill this figure is about five thousand lux.
Basic recommendations
To make lighting for seedlings with your own hands, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic recommendations that will help you properly arrange the lighting:
- You should not engage in 24-hour supplementary lighting, as this is simply not necessary. Tomatoes need an overnight rest, which should last at least five hours. This is necessary so that the bushes can fully develop. During rest, they process everything that was accumulated by the leaves during daylight hours. If you do not allow the plants to rest, then over time they will begin to experience a deficiency of nutritional components. Because of this, the leaves will begin to turn brown and become deformed.
- You need to increase daylight hours very carefully. To get more fruits, you can increase the lighting time to 20 hours. However, you need to be prepared for the fact that such cultivation will consume quite a lot of electricity.
- To illuminate a square meter of tomato seedlings, you should use lamps whose power is in the range of 200-450 watts. It is not recommended to place such lamps too close to the bushes, as this can lead to overheating of the plants. They need to be installed at a height of about one and a half meters above the young shoots. Lamps emitting cold light can be placed at a height of 50 cm.
- During cultivation, it is recommended to regularly wash windows, especially in winter. This can increase the amount of light in the room by 5-10%.
Lamp selection
To organize additional lighting with your own hands, you need to choose a suitable lamp for tomatoes.There are several most common lamps that can be used for this.
Sodium lamps
Such additional lighting is quite often used when growing tomato seedlings in greenhouse conditions. The light temperature of these lamps is 2000 K. This indicator is the most optimal for tomatoes, since such light has a positive effect on the growth of young seedlings. Sodium lamps are distinguished by their proximity to the red part of the spectrum, which helps support many vital processes of the bushes.
Another advantage of sodium lamps is that their light is very pleasant to the human eye. After all, these are the lamps that are used to illuminate streets. However, they also have certain disadvantages, which include:
- Bulky. Such lamps are equipped with very large bulbs and therefore are not easy to install with your own hands. Due to their large size, some vegetable growers cannot use them on their windowsills.
- Difficult to install. Sodium lamps are definitely not suitable for people who do not want to spend too much time installing them. To connect them, you will have to use special pulse-ignition devices and a choke. Therefore, installing them requires some experience.
- Electricity consumption. With the help of such lamps it will not be possible to save electricity, since they consume more than one hundred watts.
Fluorescent lamps
This type of lamp is also quite often used to illuminate young tomato seedlings. It is recommended to choose products whose light temperature is in the range of 4000 – 5500 K. These indicators are most suitable for tomato bushes.
The main advantage of fluorescent lamps is their economy. Therefore, they are suitable for those who do not want to spend a lot of electricity to illuminate seedlings.
Using these lamps to illuminate seedlings is not so easy, since during illumination, their light is highly scattered. To solve this problem, it is recommended to use special reflectors that will help focus the light. Most often, white foil or whatman paper is used. They should be placed near the containers in which tomatoes are grown.
This will help direct the light to the plants you are growing. Lamps should be suspended above the seedlings using hooks or any other device with which the height can be adjusted. Some people install them on the windowsill, but this placement is less effective.
LED lights
In the last few years, LED lamps have begun to rapidly gain popularity. Previously, they were rarely used to illuminate tomato seedlings due to their high price.
However, over time they became more accessible to ordinary people. The light temperature of such lamps is in the range of 2500-6000 K, which is ideal for illuminating tomatoes. Another advantage of the lamps is the variety of lighting colors. This allows you to choose the most optimal lamp for growing tomatoes. Other advantages of LED lamps include:
- Small size. Thanks to its small dimensions, you can install such a lamp yourself on almost any window sill.
- Life time. These lights can last for decades if used carefully.
- Energy saving.With such lighting you can seriously save on electricity, since these lamps consume only 6 W.
- Possibility of installing several lamps with different colors. This allows you to enhance a particular color spectrum if necessary.
Conclusion
It’s quite easy to create additional lighting for tomatoes with your own hands. To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the length of daylight hours for tomato seedlings and the lamps that can be used for this. You also need to decide which light is most optimal for tomatoes.
