Greenhouse in Japan

[Scope]

Hello. This is my 2nd thread in Tomatoville. Yes! reply to your request! These photos are taken today ,so fresh!

We have 3 greenhouses. Most part of them are growing tomatoes. Rest are strawberries.
Now we selling tomatoes which are high brix%. Very limited watering makes them very sweet and firm. In winter, sweet tomatoes are pleased. This is the work for our farm stand.

And also I am focusing on to finding blue tomatoes. Of course they are not stable.

[Doug9345]

Nice green house. What varieties of blue tomatoes are you growing? I grew some P-20s that was sent to me as plants and some Indigo Rose from seed. I'll try both again as I liked the looks of them, but it was too hot and dry last summer to really judge much about them.

Are your customers willing to buy other colors of tomatoes besides red? The reason I ask is because I've grown some very sweet tomatoes that were not red.

[mdvpc]

Scope

Great photos, thanks for posting them! Please keep the photos coming!

[sprtsguy76]

Very nice photos I enjoyed them as well! I'm very interested in your watering technique?! Oh and welcome to TV!


Damon

[Cole_Robbie]

Yes, great pics! Thank you for posting them.

I also am wondering about the irrigation method and the varieties grown.

Do you grow any determinate varieties? What do you like as a cold-tolerant early tomato?

[Scope]

Thank you all.
I use this watering technique during early autumn to early spring in the greenhouse. Under high temp. condition, they will be rotten with bottom rot. Of course using this method causes lesser production. But their leaves and fruits become smaller. So I plant them closer than usual.(about 20cm) Watering during winter is once or twice/day. The timing to watering them is slightly drooping can be seen.

A few years ago, I grew Black Sea Man with this way. Their fruits are fairly sweet and our customers were satisfied. I called and sold them as 'Black fruits tomato'.

About blue tomatoes, I growing Shadow Boxing,Chocolate Blues,Blue Bayou(bred by Tom Wagner) , Blue Phoenix(my cross of (Shadow Boxing x chocolate colored Searching for Blue Zebra) and OSU blue. This summer I segregated 4 types of Shadow Boxing. Now I'm growing 3 types from these. One of them has dwarf vine. I want to find out good flavored one.
Oh,I remember that I used limited watering method to 'Indigo Rose' in early spring. But I can't have good result. They almost haven't got sweet taste. 'Indigo Rose' has very good production and beauty. But they don't have any sweet gene, I think.

Thank you Doug9345!
Here in Japan, some cracked tomatoes are not accepted by our customers. I am taking care about this. And I need to breed out green/yellow/orange tasty lines with crack resistant.
But I like Green Zebra for years,and they are our customers(included restaurant chefs) favorite. Other favorites are Black Sea Man,Evergreen,Green doctors and KBX. They almost go to our table, not customers. The reason is above. But Green Doctors didn't cause cracks this summer. I'll grow them for my farm stand next spring. Do you know crack resistant/tasty varieties in another color?

I haven't grow determinate varieties until Tom Wagner's 'Chocolate Blues'. Most of Japanese farmers don't know determinate tomatoes, I think. And almost seed companies in Japan haven't listed them. In my opinion, we have so limited field. We need to use our space efficiently. So we choose indeterminate varieties.
Recently we have problem caused by white flies in summer.(TYLCV) To solve this,I'll try to plant determinate varieties which have resistance to TYLCV. Determinate tomatoes can harvest in short period.It's ideal for me to lower the risk of this disease.
For early crops, I choose cherry tomato or medium sized cherry line. Most of them are early and sweet. And their pollens are enough in lower temp. condition when Large tomato can't set fruits. But it is around 50°F. Lower temp. than this, I have no idea.
My favorite red cherry is 'Lovely Sakura'(Mikadokyowa seed) and medium sized is 'Frutica' (Takii).

Very nice Scope. I also grew Shadow Boxing and got a dwarf. It was striped but did not have any anthocyanin (Blue) in the fruit like the indeterminates did.

[Doug9345]

For me last year was a very mixed bag for growing tomatoes. I got a hold of land working equipment later than I needed to and got my garden plowed later than I should have. When It was the time to transplant the tomatoes I stepped on a nail and was very limited on what I could do and had friends help me plant. The summer then turned out to be the hottest and driest one I ever remember. I didn't irrigate my tomatoes because I wanted them to grow as good a root system as they could. I'm on a well and wasn't sure how much water I could use off it. I do have a pond out back, but I didn't want to build an irrigation system.

The tomatoes grew slowly and set fruit. then we got some rain, then more heat and dryness and then more rain. This caused a lot of my tomatoes to crack and it also caused the weeds to grow rampantly. I was also depending an a map to know where what was. That didn't work out so With weeds and sprawling tomatoes it was hard to tell exactly where you where.

To answer your question about sweet other color tomatoes. For cherries I liked Coyote, a yellow cherry, Black Cherry, and Yellow Currant which of course is a currant and not a cherry.

Taxi, a yellow determinant, seemed to be fairly crack resistant. My hearts didn't crack. The weird thing was that my non reds did better than my red tomatoes. I don't know why. My first guess would be differences from one place to another in the garden.

The other varieties I planted I have hard time evaluating because there were to many influences that were unusual.

[Doug9345]

I do have a question for you. How hard is it to get seed into Japan.

[Heritage]

Scope,

That is an impressive operation, thank you for posting. What is the night temperature in your greenhouses?

PM me if you need some more blue genetic material for your breeding programs.

Steve

[Scope]

It's been a long time. I've had cold and backache. Ouch! But I'm fine now.

Thank you Doug. I always considering how to develop their root and ability. I often forget about root system which support plant and fruits. Plant doesn't grow well without root development. I agree with you.
Here in Japan, our customs became fairly nervous. Because of Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid.(PSTV) There is TYLCV in Japan and causes problems. TYLCV isn't transmitted by seeds or through scissors which touched the plant affected by TYLCV. PSTV is not. Most of the seed company in US can't respond to our customs requirement this year. Officially.
If they find tomato seeds, they'll throw away or return them absolutely. I noticed this last December....

Thank you,Steve. I'm in a flood of tomato seeds. thank you so much.
Our greenhouse is controlled 52゜F at night. I can grow them around 40゜F. But tomatoes will be catfacing. Our commercial varieties don't produce pollens under 50゜F( It's depend on the daytime temp.) I think such situation is not suitable for tomatoes. Besides we need to produce globe shaped beautiful tomatoes. Are strange shaped tomatoes accepted in farmers market in US?

By the way, I have to show our cultivation system. Our cultivation(in the greenhouse) is separated from the ground. This is called 'Taru' system. 'Taru' means a kind of barrel.(They look alike so.)
Usually we plant 4-6 plant on each 'Taru'. Feed the liquid fertilizer. At this point, 'Taru' has cavity for the water tank which are overflowed water including fertilizer. The cavity helps continuous water absorption.
But this 'Taru' tend to overgrown the weeds.
Do you have system like this?

[Granite26]

Scope: thats a very nice greenhouse and one heck of alot of tomatoes! Great job. Thanks for posting.

[Doug9345]

Is the taru basically a self watering pot or is this a hydroponic system. I've always found it interesting how things are done in other places.

[bower]

It is really a magnificent growing space, Scope. The yellow traps, a very professional touch. You catch every pest before it becomes a problem.

[Deborah]

I'd grow Lovely Sakura just for the pretty name !