T-8 fluorescents to grow Tomato babies?

[amideutch]

Question for Ami, sorry to boomerang the thread here. I went back and re-read your 2010 invaluable instructions for cold treatment, and the gotcha errors that DarJones contributed to the thread. Have you since observed any tomato varieties that respond negatively to their chilly environment?

GTO, I have not seen any adverse effects on any of the tomato varieties I have used the "Cold Treatment" on. Some varieties respond more to the cold treatment than others.

What I have found is I do get earlier flower clusters with more flowers as advertised and normally more fruit set from them. As the plant matures and more flower clusters appear later in the season this sometimes coincides with weather conditions that are not conducive to fruit set and blossom drop occurs caused by higher temperatures,humidity or both. After the weather settles flowering and fruit set resume. So the earlier fruit set from the cold treatment is a plus for earlier fruit maturity and production.

My setup in the basement allows me to control temperatures as my radiators are manually controlled. With no heat, temps range around 53.0 57.0 deg F. I put my growing bench up against the wall with the radiator underneath. Plant my seeds in my jump-start peat pellets and put the lid on the mini green house and turn on the radiator. After germination I turn off the heater, remove the lid and turn on the grow lights. From that time the only heat to the plants comes from the CFL's and FL-tubes. Then I transplant to 4" CowPots and set them out to a mini green house till I'm ready to plant out as seen from the link from my previous post.

Ami