Can anyone enlighten me
Do Red Collars Help Tomatoes Grow?
Has anyone heard of the color red helping tomatoes? They sell a red collar that goes around the base of the plant to reflect the red back to the tomatoes. Sounds like a gimmick to me.
Can anyone enlighten me
Can anyone enlighten me
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pharmerphil
- Senior Member
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 7:13 am
- Location: Minnesota
Maybe it's Minnesota, but, I tried a side by side "MULCH" comparison a couple years back on fifteen plants three each had one of the following mulches..
I used:
Red Plastic SRM (selective-reflective mulch was what it was advertised as)
Black plastic
aluminum foil lined plastic..(mylar)
Oak leaf mold
Grass hay
results...
I saw no difference in production, plant health or vigor..
the black generated a bit too much heat, in my opinion.
the rest, no difference...the leaf mold and grass hay, if any, did the best job of retaining moisture...
But If you happen to get some red plastic..cheap, give it a go, I would,'t buy it, nor did I...I had it given to me...
I used:
Red Plastic SRM (selective-reflective mulch was what it was advertised as)
Black plastic
aluminum foil lined plastic..(mylar)
Oak leaf mold
Grass hay
results...
I saw no difference in production, plant health or vigor..
the black generated a bit too much heat, in my opinion.
the rest, no difference...the leaf mold and grass hay, if any, did the best job of retaining moisture...
But If you happen to get some red plastic..cheap, give it a go, I would,'t buy it, nor did I...I had it given to me...
Is it a gimmick? Yes. Does red light help? yes.
Cholorphyll absorbs both red and blue light but not much in between. Blue light has more energy and helps growth more, but red light stimulates flowering = fruit production, so if you are growing under artificial lights and you use sodium based lights (lots of red, little blue) you get funky growth but good flowering, and if you grow under Metal Halide lights (lots of blue, little red) you get good growth but reduced flowering.
Takeing this concept to the field a university did a study on tomatoes using red plasic mulch, and found something like a 15% increase in fruit production, which would have made the mulch economical, but subsequent tests have not found as much increase. For it to work you need to have wide spaces (like 5 ft) between the plant rows so that a lot of full sun can hit the plastic to be reflected back onto the plant. Most home gardeners do not do this, they cram their plants together. Home gardeners also would probably not see any increase even if they did plant far apart because they grow so few plants, and often of different varieties, so that natural variability would swamp out the small increase cause by the mulch. You would really need to grow ten plants, or more, of the same variety with and without to even hope for a statistically significant difference.
Is it a gimmic? Yes, because people wanting to make money saw the small positive result from the university study, ignored the specifice, and decided to tell gardeners "red grows better tomatoes, buy my magic product", which may be a 1 foot square red mulch collar that goes around the base of the plant, etc.
As a side note:
Shade has proportionally less red light and more blue light than full sun which is one reason why it is difficult to get good flowering and fruit production under shady conditions.
Cholorphyll absorbs both red and blue light but not much in between. Blue light has more energy and helps growth more, but red light stimulates flowering = fruit production, so if you are growing under artificial lights and you use sodium based lights (lots of red, little blue) you get funky growth but good flowering, and if you grow under Metal Halide lights (lots of blue, little red) you get good growth but reduced flowering.
Takeing this concept to the field a university did a study on tomatoes using red plasic mulch, and found something like a 15% increase in fruit production, which would have made the mulch economical, but subsequent tests have not found as much increase. For it to work you need to have wide spaces (like 5 ft) between the plant rows so that a lot of full sun can hit the plastic to be reflected back onto the plant. Most home gardeners do not do this, they cram their plants together. Home gardeners also would probably not see any increase even if they did plant far apart because they grow so few plants, and often of different varieties, so that natural variability would swamp out the small increase cause by the mulch. You would really need to grow ten plants, or more, of the same variety with and without to even hope for a statistically significant difference.
Is it a gimmic? Yes, because people wanting to make money saw the small positive result from the university study, ignored the specifice, and decided to tell gardeners "red grows better tomatoes, buy my magic product", which may be a 1 foot square red mulch collar that goes around the base of the plant, etc.
As a side note:
Shade has proportionally less red light and more blue light than full sun which is one reason why it is difficult to get good flowering and fruit production under shady conditions.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Great post TZ. I did one time try red plastic "mulch." I did as TZ noted, a bunch of different tomato plants crammed together in a raised bed. I covered the bed with the red plastic and planted through it. In that situation I did not see any noticeable difference with the red plastic than without it.
I will be hanging mine out of the side of a red bucket. They will be pointing out the side so maybe they can get better sun. They will be hanging to keep them away from raccoons. I think for this reason I should see an increase of produce this year. I got the red because it was pretty and because of the above mentioned stuff. 
Rick
Rick
